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If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. The first thing any organisation that is serious about reducing its carbon footprint should do is measure that footprint. This will show you where the easiest gains can be made, and will also help you to produce a prioritised list of actions you can take to reduce your carbon output. It is also a chance to look at your bills, your processes and the efficiency of your operation. Put simply, wherever you’re wasting anything but time, you’re wasting natural resources.
Once you’ve measured your environmental impact, you need to identify your goals. This is an important step. For many, having an environmental policy will be about saying the right things and having a document to appease customers’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) concerns – and that’s important. But the fundamental benefit of a policy is that it makes you identify your overall view of the subject, your objectives and your approach. The more clearly you can articulate this to your workforce, the more coherently you will set about implementing it.
There are different approaches to be had by auditing your operation. The Government’s major focus is on reducing carbon emissions. Thus, carbon footprinting is one of the more readily available tools. A true environmental audit, though, will examine all your processes and consumption with a view to minimising impact on neighbours, protecting the air quality in the immediate locality and natural resources; and minimising waste, noise and odour production.
One of the challenges for the carbon economy has been to agree a standard protocol for calculating carbon output. For smaller firms that are unlikely to seek external certification of their green efforts, a standard web-based calculator may be suitable. However, larger companies should be aware of the GHG protocol – this is the emerging international standard. Another emerging standard closely allied with the GHG protocol is ISO14064. Any environmental auditing tools or companies you use should adhere to these standards. That said, you can set your own methodology, but it may limit the external credibility of your work.
In addition, the accepted greenhouse gas conversion values (ie how much a unit of power emits) in the UK are set by Defra and are available on the Defra and the Carbon Trust websites. The Government focuses on CO2 and CO2 equivalent (expressed as CO2e) values. However, there are other pollutants and greenhouse gases that daily life and commerce emit into the atmosphere. It is your choice whether you wish to narrow your focus to CO2 or use a wider measure.
Once you have established which methodology to work to, you can perform a basic calculation fairly quickly by looking at on-site energy usage, including gas, electricity, heating oil and vehicle fuel. However, this isn’t the total footprint of an organisation. Indirect emissions, including from product and vehicle suppliers, subcontractors and employees travelling to work, all have an impact. Decide whether to include leased or short-term hire vehicles or subsidiaries. For most companies, calculating the cost of these emissions and reducing them is a secondary project.
Keep in mind that your calculations must include all your vehicles, depots, warehouses, workshops, cold stores and offices. It must also include any cars driven on company business, flights and train journeys. And remember, the function of an environmental audit is to lay a clear, consistent and verifiable baseline to guide and to measure improvements against.
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