10 Steps to Becoming a Carbon Neutral Business

Page 30 STEP 08: BALANCE YOUR REMAINING EMISSIONS Balance your remaining emissions STEP 08 Generally, you want to reduce your emissions internally first before starting to offset. There will be unavoidable emissions when running your business that you cannot eradicate. Your CEO might have to use air travel to attend overseas customer meetings; your company will generate waste that needs disposing; or your company’s forklifts may run on propane. Each of these activities has an associated carbon footprint. To go carbon neutral, you will have to balance any emissions that remain after your internal reductions and efforts to green your energy supply, by “offsetting” them. Carbon offsetting means compensating for emissions by funding the removal of an equal amount of emissions elsewhere in the world. It works as follows: your company financially invests in the implementation of a carbon reduction project, through a project developer. Examples of reduction projects include planting trees, developing wind farms or providing rural communities with low emission cooking stoves. In return for your financial investment in the project, you will receive the accompanying carbon credits which allow you to “claim” the related emission reductions. The carbon credit is verified by an independent party and documents that one ton of CO2 was reduced or avoided by the project you invested in. Carbon credits prove that, first, the project you invested in reduced a certain amount of CO2 and, second, the reduction of CO2 could not have been achieved without your financial investment. While all carbon reducing projects decrease emissions, there are also some that provide additional social benefits, such as local employment, but these usually come with an extra cost. Your organization should decide how important it is that your carbon offsetting projects add value beyond emission reductions. If offsetting constitutes a large part of your carbon neutrality pledge due to a tight timeframe for achieving your target, you may want to invest in high-profile carbon credits to have a better story to tell. Alternatively, if you have already reduced most of your emissions by internal measures, offsetting plays a less important role and therefore you may not place the same importance on selecting carbon credits with social benefits. As there are a wide range of projects to potentially choose from, it is important to set some guiding principles for your selection. Carbon credits offer an opportunity to communicate about the impact of your carbon neutrality project beyond greenhouse gas reductions alone. With many projects having their own benefits beyond emission reductions – ranging from protecting animal habitats to providing clean water and sanitation – there is an obvious opportunity to source carbon credits that align with your business and its values.