10 Steps to Becoming a Carbon Neutral Business

Page 9 STEP 02: FIND YOUR PARTNER Having more partners allows you to compare services and get different perspectives, but you also risk having unconnected workstreams and making the overall management of your program more complicated. There are a few considerations to be aware of when choosing a partner. Each partner has their own range of activities they will be able to help you with. There is a somewhat blurry pool of consultancies that claim to be experts in the full range of climate action programs. In reality, most of them will likely be really strong in one or two areas and either work with partners to cover the rest or simply offer a limited level of service. You should expect to see different emphasis across these organizations. Some will be strong on the hardcore operational tasks required for implementation of your program, like the acquisition of Renewable Energy Certificates or carbon credits. Others may have their strengths in greenhouse gas accounting and reporting frameworks. Others again may be specialized in Power Purchase Agreements and can help you connect to relevant partners commercially, financially and geographically. Each of these consultancies will have various levels of capability in terms of also working as your strategic partner and sounding board to develop your program and offer advice proactively. The latter is really at the high-end of the service spectrum and comes at a significant cost. You will need to gauge which focus area or strength you think is most important in the partner you sign to support your particular need. Note that even if you decide to work with only one partner, you will most likely be assigned multiple consultants specialized in the different areas. These individuals may not necessarily be well-connected, based in the same location or even in the same team. So you may want to consider requesting one project manager from your external partner to coordinate and align the work carried out on your behalf among their individual consultants. / Culture and operating style The culture of your external partner and the way they do things is almost as important as their technical credentials. Your perfect match (if that exists!) will depend on your organizational culture and also on your carbon neutrality ambition. For instance, would you like your partners to be highly proactive or is it fine that they are reactive as long as they respond to your requests? Of course, you cannot really know how companies work until you start collaborating with them. Do make sure that the factors that are priorities for you are explored during the pitch and due diligence phase. Sometimes the best thing to do is speak to one of their existing clients to find out what they are really like to work with.