There is no doubt that we are facing a global climate crisis. With global temperatures rising and natural disasters occurring more frequently, it’s becoming ever more pressing to make a change for the better.
In this post, we’ll talk about how and why we went carbon neutral and how you can too.
Why Did We Go Carbon Neutral?
The main main reason we went carbon neutral is obvious, to do our part to help the environment.
It’s becoming more pressing for us all to make a difference. 20 of the hottest years on record have happened in the last 22 years, and it’s predicted that the worst effects of climate change could be irreversible by 2030, meaning we don’t have long to change our habits.
If we don’t make a change, sea levels will continue to rise faster, displacing hundreds of millions living on coastal land. Hurricanes, forest fires and tornados will become more and more frequent, causing untold harm. And millions of animals face extinction.
We don’t know about you, but to us this sounds terrible, so we wanted to do what we could.
There have been secondary benefits too. We’ve found that clients are becoming more and more environmentally conscious and this extends to their choice of suppliers and service providers. As we are now Verra Carbon Standard certified, we’ve been able to proudly display this on our marketing materials, improving our client acquisition rates slightly.
But, it’s not just clients that are more environmentally conscious, everyone is. This means when we advertise our vacancies, prospective employees are more likely to apply too.
While these secondary benefits weren’t the main reasons we decided to go carbon neutral, it is interesting that, like the environment itself, it’s a self-regulating system. Some businesses decide to go carbon neutral, this means they acquire more clients and potential employees, this makes it more attractive for businesses to go carbon neutral and so on.
What can you do to go carbon neutral?
Hopefully that’s all convinced you such that, if you weren’t already, you are now considering what you can do to go carbon neutral.
The good news is, it’s not as hard as it may sound. Let’s look at some tips to reduce your power consumption.
- Turn the lights off
This may seem obvious but it’s shocking how many office blocks and shop fronts are illuminated 24/7. Have the last person to leave turn the lights off… easy.
- Use low-power mode when computers are not in use
When your team all get up to go for their lunch, do they put their computers into low-power mode such as sleep or hibernate? If not, encourage them to do so.
- Reduce travel
This is a big one, and something the pandemic may have helped with. Try to reduce the amount of travel your organisation is responsible for. Does that client meeting need to be face to face? Could you offer more remote working for your staff? And, are your international business trips really essential? These are all questions to think about. Do what’s right for your business, of course, but be conscious that travel will increase your emissions.
- Choose your suppliers wisely
While this won’t have a direct impact on your emissions, it can reduce the emissions your business is responsible for in the whole. When evaluating suppliers, all things being equal, you could take into account the environmental profile of each supplier.
Unsure how to evaluate the environmental credentials of a business? Ask them. If they don’t have an answer, it’s likely that emissions aren’t on their radar.
- Install solar panels
Installing solar panels can have a dramatic effect on your emissions profile. They are not cheap, but the reduction in your energy bills can make the investment worth it in the long run.
On top of this, there are a variety of schemes to reduce or even eliminate your upfront costs.
These include business grants and “power purchase agreements” where installation of solar panels is free and you pay a significantly lower energy rate. On top of this, you may be eligible for a reduction in tax based on your investment into solar energy.
- Offset
Finally, you can look into offsetting your carbon emissions. This is perhaps the easiest of the bunch. You simply send your electricity bill to a third party who will offset your carbon emissions with carbon capture projects (e.g. planting trees).
This is enticing. However, it’s worth doing your research as not all offsetting programmes are made equal.
There we have it. We hope this post has given you some motivation to reduce your carbon emissions and some ideas on how you can do so too. If we all make a small change, we can protect our planet and the lives of everything on it.
