Decarbonising your Business
We are seeing first-hand the results of climate change and the impact on businesses around the world. Your organisation may be reviewing the potential risks ahead, from preparing for energy transitions to ensuring a sustainable supply chain but decarbonising your business can provide opportunities for your business to remain competitive whilst facing the challenges ahead.
The more you understand about carbon and how it relates to your overall operations, the better equipped you'll be to make changes that have a positive impact on both your company's bottom line and the environment.
Here we look at the steps to decarbonising your business and the opportunities within the process.
- 1. Understanding and engagement Increase your understanding of carbon by completing online webinars, engaging a third party to complete a workshop with staff and engage with other employees to support your mission by setting up a green team. To ensure change, getting buy in from board and directors’ level at the start is essential. You can do this by adding Net Zero to the agenda of meetings to provide forum to discuss. If you need assistance to get engagement our 10 Benefits of Decarbonisation will provide you with the clear reasons any company should start this journey and should open the channels of communications with board level.
- 2. Complete a carbon footprint Typically, an organisation will begin with a Scope 1 and 2 calculations. This will include activities such as heating of your buildings, electricity used, transport for organisational use. If the information is available companies can often include some elements or categories of Scope 3, such as employee commuting or business travel. Depending on the size of your company and your client to whom you supply, this may dictate the categories in Scope 3 you must include.
- 3. Identify Carbon Hotspots By completing a Carbon Footprint assessment, obvious hot spots within your company activities will become apparent. List them from highest TCO2e to lowest TCO2e so you have a clear focus on the where the largest impact can be made.
- 4. Develop a Clear Pathway Compile list of carbon reduction projects. Start with the easy wins – talk to your energy supplier about changing to renewable electricity contracts. Look to green or renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels. Discuss with your green team the likely projects which could lead to carbon reductions.
- 5. Research grants and funding available There are grants and funding for any size of business available. Check out our link here for full information.
- 6. Set short term 5 -10 year targets and long term 2050 targets We recommend aligning with Science Based Targets. Agree a percentage reduction target year on year in TCO2e to allow transparency on how your organisation is progressing on their net zero journey. Be prepared for changes year on year as your company grows. Set KPI’s which are relevant to your operations. This could be TOC2e per employee/m2 of building/product sold.
- 7. Share your Net Zero Goals Now you have a Net Zero plan, it is time to share your vision with your stakeholders, customers and staff. This demonstrates commitment, transparency and that your organisation is clear on its mission to become a Net Zero company.
- 8. Monitor and Track It is essential to monitor and track your emissions to guarantee annual reduction. Online systems such as Carbonfit can assist through their online platform which provides calculations, tracking and helps identify anomalies and hotspots throughout the year. It can assist in all aspects of this journey from step 1 to 10 simplifying the entire process so you can focus on your organisation.
- 9. Year 2 complete your Carbon Footprint and complete a Full Scope 3 Inventory
- 10. Engage with your Suppliers Review potential circular activities of your product or service offering. Remember to Innovate – are there any technologies within next 10 years which are viable which could be deployed within your long-term Net Zero Plan?
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