Decarbonization: meaning, technology and goals
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In this article, we delve into the importance of decarbonizing our societies and outline actionable steps companies can take today to embark on their net-zero journey.
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How to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Your Business?
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In your personal life, you're probably trying to reduce your personal carbon footprint, whether it’s through flying less, eating local, consuming less meat, preventing food waste, shifting to vegan diet, buying sustainably sourced products, preferring public transportation, cycling to work, investing in an electric vehicle or bringing your own bag to the supermarket.
But often our professional activities can leave a much bigger carbon footprint than that of our personal lives. Therefore, the question is how to reduce carbon footprint (business), such as by opting for renewable energy and phasing out fossil fuels, in order to help in the fight against climate change?
We’ve put together this handy guide to help your business work towards decreasing its carbon footprint slowly and sustainably.
What even is a carbon footprint?
A carbon footprint refers to the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere following activities of an individual, organization, or community – such as air travel, business operations, or even securing carbon intensive meats.
In 1896, a chemist named Svante Arrhenius ran various calculations and discovered that the carbon emissions coming from human activity were sizable enough to eventually cause global temperatures to rise through the greenhouse effect.
“ It’s not that the world hasn’t had more carbon dioxide, it’s not that the world hasn’t been warmer. The problem is the speed at which things are changing. We are inducing a sixth mass extinction event kind of by accident and we don’t want to be the ‘extinctee.’ – (Bill Nye, The Science Guy). ”
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However, it wasn’t until about a hundred years later that we became conscious of carbon footprints, and started setting out to try to reduce them.
Even though it’s called a carbon footprint, a carbon footprint is actually a total measure of the greenhouse gas emissions (mainly carbon dioxide, but also gasses like methane and nitrous oxide) caused by a person’s or a business’s activity.
A carbon footprint is expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent, measured in weight (kilograms, tons, megatons and so on).
We can also assign carbon footprints to products, services, business activities, and individuals – pretty much everything that exists and every action is responsible for carbon dioxide emissions. This can include bananas (80g or 2.82oz each), emails (4g or 0.14oz each), and being cremated (80kg or 2,822oz).
The table below will illustrate common contributors to excessively large carbon footprints:
| Activity/Thing | Carbon Footprint Contribution |
|---|---|
| Driving a Gasoline-Powered Car | Emissions from burning fossil fuels contribute to high CO2 output. |
| Air Travel | Flights release significant amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere, especially long-haul flights. |
| Consuming Red Meat | Meat production, particularly beef, contributes to methane emissions and deforestation. |
| Using Disposable Plastics | Plastic production and waste contribute to greenhouse gas emissions during manufacturing and decomposition. |
| Unnecessary Energy Consumption | Using more energy than necessary for heating, cooling, and appliances results in more fossil fuel use. |
| Fast Fashion | Clothing manufacturing, dyeing processes, and the rapid turnover of trends lead to increased waste and emissions. |
| Deforestation | Clearing forests for agriculture or development reduces CO2 absorption and contributes to environmental degradation. |
| Food Waste | Food waste that decomposes in landfills emits methane, a potent greenhouse gas. |
| Overconsumption of Water | The energy used for water treatment, heating, and distribution adds to the carbon footprint. |
| Excessive Use of Single-Use Items | Packaging and single-use items, often made of plastic or non-recyclable materials, add to waste and pollution. |
Overall, measuring our carbon footprints can provide us with a clear universal metric for comparing and contrasting, and helps us work out where we can start to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – such as by pinpointing where we must reduce emissions, where we can implement the use of renewable energy sources, work towards using less energy, and more.
What are the benefits of reducing my business’s carbon footprint?
Working to reduce carbon emissions and your company's carbon footprint can help contribute to a healthier, more sustainable planet. More importantly, it can help to prevent the consequences of climate change, such as extreme weather events, food scarcity, water shortages, and more.
While many recognize the urgency of tackling climate change, businesses often struggle to prioritize and communicate their efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions – as global consumerism continues to take precedent over working towards or achieving net zero emissions in the 21st century.
Luckily, there are many reasons to start measuring and monitoring at your business’s carbon footprint, and many of them have nothing to do with the environment – meaning it could actually prove useful to the success of your business long-term.
Here's a breakdown of why working to reduce your carbon footprint footprint via efforts to save energy, employ fuel efficiency, use clean energy equipment, or follow the guidelines depicted by the Environmental Protection Agency could all prove worthwhile for your business:
Your customers
Consumers are increasingly looking for socially and environmentally conscious brands, which means that if your company becomes opening to changing its business model – you could draw in both new customers and extend the loyalty of your existing clients.
In fact, in 2023 – 44% of people recommending ESG products end up sharing it with over 10 people – meaning eco-friendly businesses are likely to become more popular through word of mouth alone. Conscious consumers make up 24% of U.S. customers in 2023.
Your team
Making a commitment to reducing your carbon footprint (or even working towards net zero) is a smart way to attract younger talent.
In fact, 71% of employees would consider a pay cut to work for an employer whose values match their own. In addition to this, purpose-driven companies are 40% more likely to retain their existing workforce.
If you’re concerned about hiring and keeping good employees, climate action and carbon footprint targets are great for your brand – as they can attract the right kind of talent to help encourage your company to both develop and maintain more sustainable practices.
Your investors
Investors are increasingly looking to fund environmentally friendly companies, as sustainable companies are more bound to maintain their financial success in the coming years in conjunction with climate change and depleting resources.
This means that measuring, disclosing and reducing your carbon footprint is one way to demonstrate that you are actively committed to shaping a better planet for future generations, and inspires trust and transparency.
Furthermore, this can help to build a better relationship with your suppliers and stakeholders.
Your finances
Working on your greenhouse gasses may not be an immediate opportunity to cut operational costs and save money, but going green can have a positive, long-term effect on your net profit – as implementing the use of things like solar panels or energy efficient technologies can help to reduce your business expenses over time.
Efforts to reduce tour company's carbon footprint that could also result in cost savings over time include:
- Switching to energy efficiency equipment
- Evaluating your suppliers
- Making changes to the way your company operates and provides financial benefits
As a whole, all of these benefits may not have occurred if your business hadn't started to prioritize its carbon footprint. Contrary to popular opinion, going green doesn’t have to mean more expensive.
In the end, working on your greenhouse gas emissions does require additional time and resources – but it’s an investment in your business’s future, and it’s not without returns as it could help your business to flourish over the long run.
3 steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
At Greenly, we know that it feel overwhelming to get started – but we’ve got a simple three-step process that will guide you through from beginning to end. This will help you to effectively reduce your carbon footprint.
Here's how your company can get started in reducing your carbon emissions and footprint:
Measure
The first step to reduce your carbon footprint is figuring out how big your greenhouse gas emissions currently are – which will be continent on your company's size and sector.
In fact, carbon footprint measurement does more than tell you how much carbon you're responsible for — it also tells you which activities account for what percentage of your carbon emissions.
This granularity is crucial for the next step, because without knowing which activities are causing most of your greenhouse gases, it’s impossible to know the best place to start.
Reduce
This is where the real action comes in. Once you’ve got clear data on which business activities are the biggest contributors to your average carbon footprint, you can start to set clear and measurable goals for reducing it, and make a plan for what you’ll tackle first.
Finding quick and simple ways to drastically reduce your carbon footprint like this is a great way to start your sustainability journey. It shows quantifiable results quickly, building momentum and boosting morale across the team. Once you’ve got some wins under your belt, you can look at setting longer-term goals for reducing (and maybe even neutralizing) your greenhouse gas emissions.
Offset
As we have already explained on our blog before, it’s impossible for your business to emit zero carbon – as we all emit carbon ourselves just by breathing (but don’t worry, your breath is technically net zero).
However, many businesses want to know the final step — once you’ve done all that you can (or even if you haven’t but are working towards it), what else can you do to mitigate your business’s impact on the climate change?
The answer is offsetting, which is a way to compensate for your company’s carbon emissions by investing in projects that help prevent more carbon from entering the atmosphere (more on this below).
In others words, you should purchase carbon offsets to help compensate for the additional emissions your company will be unable to reduce on its own.
Step 1: Measuring your business’s carbon footprint
Calculating the carbon footprint of an entire business is no small feat.
There are three ways to go about it: internally, externally, and digitally:
Calculating your carbon footprint internally
Calculating your business’s carbon footprint internally can be complicated and time-consuming. Most of the time, you’d need to hire a dedicated carbon accountant or even a team of carbon accountants, which can get expensive quickly.
If you’re just looking for a rough idea of your greenhouse gas emissions as a starting point, try using Greenly’s free carbon footprint calculator.
Calculating your carbon footprint externally
Some companies opt to hire environmental consulting firms to help them calculate and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. While this can be a more flexible option than hiring your own team, it doesn’t give your company as much ownership over your metrics and your roadmaps.
Calculating your carbon footprint digitally
A third and final way is to go digital.
For instance, with a digital carbon accounting platform like Greenly, you can calculate your carbon footprint to a high degree of accuracy, get clear and real-time insights on areas of opportunity for reducing your greenhouse gas emissions, personalized action plans, and climate experts to help you along your journey to net zero.
Step 2: Reducing your business’s carbon footprint
Once you’ve measured and analyzed your business’s carbon footprint, you’ll know the best place to start to make the most impactful changes with the least disruption.
If you haven’t calculated your business’s actual carbon footprint yet, or you just want to get a head-start on your environmental impact, here are five ways to reduce your carbon footprint.
Transport
One example of a carbon footprint contributor is transport. If each of your employees commutes to and from work every day, this adds up over time — but even that is small in comparison to the huge chunk of flight's carbon emissions.
There are a few easy ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions : avoid flying, promote public transport around your head office... By the way, allowing employees to work from home cuts your transport emissions significantly. The second is cutting down on business travel in general. Can that meeting, conference or event be held online?
Chances are, it can — and the planet will be better for it.
Energy efficiency
If your office has a physical presence (an office, a warehouse, and so on), then one key contributor to your carbon footprint will be the energy used to generate electricity and power your heat, air conditioning, lights, and so on.
Switching to a green provider is a relatively easy way to lower your energy use and personal impact, as well as swapping out incandescent light bulbs and other appliances for more energy-efficient alternatives.
Furthermore, if you have days where everyone’s working from home – your energy emissions could be significantly reduced and benefit your company carbon emission reduction goals.
Electronics
For many companies, especially tech and knowledge companies, the electronic devices your employees work, such as cell phones and computers, can make up a sizable chunk of your greenhouse gas emissions.
This is because electronic devices have a carbon footprint of their own, because of what it takes to mine the raw materials, manufacture the devices, and ship them to their point of sale.
It’s worth noting that it’s not just carbon emissions that hang over your electronics purchases, but also critical mineral depletion, environmental damage, and, often, human rights and labor issues.
You can reduce your total electronics emissions by:
- Buying second-hand or refurbished devices when you can
- Purchasing from companies committed to carbon neutrality or net zero such as from Apple or Microsoft
- Getting your devices serviced regularly to extend their lifetime
- Using less devices overall (i.e., getting rid of a tablet that is barely used)
Therefore, the golden rule would be: do not buy devices you don’t need. This small, but effective action could make a big difference and have a significant impact on your annual greenhouse gas emissions.
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Recycling and buying recycled items
Even just recycling paper can save a significant number of trees, water, oil, energy and landfill space. Cutting down on your company’s waste is a key factor for environmental impact. Buying second-hand items and supplies, or items made from recycled materials, is another easy way to produce fewer emissions and tackle climate change.
Supply chain emissions
Your supply chain can account for a staggering amount of your carbon emissions.
In fact, McKinsey estimates that more than 80% of the emissions from the consumer packaged goods sector comes from company supply chains.
We know that calculating and addressing supply chain greenhouse gas emissions isn’t for the faint of heart, so we recommend focusing on some of the low-hanging fruit (like business travel and switching energy providers) before turning your focus to your supply chain as a whole.
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Step 3: Offsetting your business’s carbon footprint
When you’ve done all you can to reduce your carbon footprint internally, it’s time to think about offsetting.
These days, there are plenty of offsetting options to choose from, ranging from renewable sources projects, all the way to conservation, waste transformation, clean energy and community projects.
However, choosing carbon offsets is tricky – because it’s a space that is largely unregulated and lacking in approved standards. There are many carbon offsetting opportunities that seem inexpensive (and sound positive), but are actually fairly useless — or worse, harmful.
This begs the question: how do you know what to look for when evaluating offset projects to invest in?
We recommend keeping these four things in mind while you shop:
Effective & Genuine Offsetting
Some offset projects are activities that would have happened regardless of whether you invested in them or not. For example, you can’t fund a forest that isn’t at risk.
Therefore, it is important to make sure you’re investing in active reduction projects that wouldn’t occur otherwise.
Leakage
Some carbon offset projects could actually be causing unintended negative consequences in other areas, such as by contributing to leaks elsewhere.
Permanence
The emissions saved by the project must be guaranteed not to be released into the atmosphere at some time in the future.
Double-counting
Some carbon offset investments are sold multiple times over (without multiple times the carbon being reduced).
Ultimately, we know that working to reduce your carbon footprint can be a challenge – and that's why Greenly is here to help.
What About Greenly?
If reading this article on how to reduce your company's carbon footprint has inspired you to consider your company’s own carbon footprint, Greenly can help.
At Greenly we can help you to assess your company’s carbon footprint, and then give you the tools you need to cut down on emissions. We offer a free demo for you to better understand our platform and all that it has to offer – including assistance on how to reduce emissions, optimize energy efficiency, and more to help you get started on your climate journey.
Learn more about Greenly’s carbon management platform here.
Sources
Nobel Prize https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/1903/arrhenius/biographical/
Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2023/06/how-brands-can-sell-to-environmentally-conscious-nonconsumers
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/blog/member/career/workplace-culture-trends-the-key-to-hiring-and-keeping-top-talent
Deloitte https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/marketing-and-sales-operations/global-marketing-trends/2020/purpose-driven-companies.html
Center for Climate & Energy Solutions https://www.c2es.org/content/reducing-your-carbon-footprint-at-work/
IEA https://www.iea.org/reports/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-clean-energy-transitions/reliable-supply-of-minerals
Shred Station https://www.shredstation.co.uk/blog/11-ways-businesses-can-reduce-carbon-emissions/
McKinsey https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/starting-at-the-source-sustainability-in-supply-chains
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