CorpComms Magazine

In the past, company boardrooms may have been associated with a lot of hot air. More recently, as climate change starts to dominate the news agenda, chief executives are increasingly recognising that less is more. Indeed, 'going carbon-neutral' is now moving up the corporate agenda, and corporate communications directors are frequently finding themselves tasked with reducing a company's carbon footprint.

'Within a year, everyone will be talking the climate change language,' predicts Simon Propper, managing director of corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultancy Context. 'The new climate change bill will unleash some serious action among CEOs and finance directors to invest significantly in managing their carbon footprints.'

For those new to the concept, reducing a company's total greenhouse gas emissions (GGEs) is not a walk in a verdant park.

As early adopters have proven, it takes significant time and resources to make a dent in your carbon footprint. Marks & Spencer recently made headlines with its £200 mn eco-plan that aims to make the food and fashion retailer carbon-neutral by 2012. Its plan includes labelling air-freighted food, improving energy efficiency by 25 percent, and increasing its use of renewable energy.

Asked to isolate the most difficult part of its carbon-neutral strategy, M&S' director of store development finds it hard to answer. 'Am I allowed to say all of it?' Richard Gillies finally replies. 'There are a few things for which we don't have the answer today but we are confident that we can work with our suppliers and others to solve them.'

If it's challenging for a large retailer that long ago recognised the importance of its green credentials to eliminate its carbon trail, it can't be easy for those just getting started. But experts say that by following a few logical steps, any company can come up with a realistic goal for minimising its footprint.

Step 1: Assessment

All companies produce direct and indirect GGEs merely as a by-product of running a business. The first step to measuring total emissions begins with considering a company's direct emissions from manufacturing or services, including electricity, gas and fuel consumption.

'The second step is to look at the indirect footprint of the products and services that you provide,' points out James Wilde, head of strategy at the Carbon Trust, which provides carbon assessment services. Measuring indirect emissions involves looking at all the various steps across your supply chain to see how much carbon each emits.

The Carbon Trust has worked on a pilot project to measure the life cycle emissions across the supply chains of snack manufacturer Walkers, media group Trinity Mirror, and chemist chain Boots, as well as M&S.

'With Walkers we looked at everything from styles of potato growing to what happens to the crisp packet on disposal,' says Wilde. Now the consultancy is launching a carbon labelling pilot programme, with Walkers' cheese and onion crisps poised to become the first product to appear on supermarket shelves bearing a label that shows the amount of carbon used in its manufacture.

Proper carbon assessments can yield unanticipated results. O2's environmental manager Helen Wright was surprised to learn how much electricity consumption contributed to the mobile phone operator's emissions. 'Around 95 percent of O2 UK's corporate emissions are produced by electricity consumption, with the amount of energy required to run our network making up 80 percent of that electricity consumption,' she says.

O2 is moving onto the next stage of climate response and focusing on reducing its emissions across its supply chain. 'We are working with key players in our supply chain, and particularly considering the area of energy conservation,' says Wright. 'We are currently involved in a project that will eventually provide us with the consumption profile of all our different types of batteries, enabling us to reduce power consumption.'

Step 2: Implementation

Once a company has calculated its annual emissions, it can then set reasonable targets to reduce them within a certain time frame. Companies also have the choice between minimising their carbon footprint or going carbon-neutral, which involves offsetting the emissions they are unable to reduce to achieve a net zero-carbon status. 'Companies should really consider reducing their own emissions before thinking about offsetting,' advises Wilde. Experts suggest that energy conservation should be the core of any carbon reduction strategy. 'Your first priority is energy reduction because you need an aggressive target to reduce your energy use,' says Propper. Investing in renewable energy like wind power, solar panelling and combined heat and power (CHP) also demonstrates commitment to climate response, he adds.

You can take steps to reduce emissions that don't cost anything. 'You can save 10 percent to 15 percent of energy consumption without doing much in terms of investment simply by changing behaviour around heating and lighting,' points out Martin Gibson, director of Envirowise, a government-sponsored environmental consultant. Turning off lights at night, shutting down computers properly and not running heating with open windows are just some of the simple steps to take.

Reduction targets will vary from company to company and really depend on where the bulk of CO2 is coming from. With a carbon footprint of 1,078 cubic tonnes, Cheltenham-based Commercial Group has set a target to lessen its emissions by 80 percent over the next three years. In the first year, it will cut its footprint by 25 percent and in year two, it hopes to reach a 50 percent reduction. It came to these targets by looking at the various ways it could eliminate its emissions while still running its office services business.

Commercial chose to offset its entire carbon footprint first and then work on its reduction strategy. Sales director Simone Mann spearheaded the company's bid to go carbon-neutral after seeing Al Gore's documentary An inconvenient truth. 'That started the whole process and gave us a really compelling reason to make some changes,' says Mann.

Working with the CarbonNeutral Company, Commercial offset through a number of projects including solar home lighting in India and wind generation in New Zealand. Its reduction strategy includes switching its transport fleet to bio-diesel, cutting energy use, switching to renewable energy sources, reducing staff transport and recycling.

'We looked at the areas of highest emissions and we discovered it was fuel usage,' says Mann. The company is now in the process of getting a bio-diesel pump and plans to begin its switch to green energy over the next few months. 'We are also putting all of our staff on a course to learn how to drive more fuel-efficiently,' Mann adds.

Step 3: Telling your story

The last step is to think about how and to whom the company wants to broadcast its pledge to shrink its carbon footprint. The trend among big brand names such as supermarket giant Tesco, M&S and GE has been to launch a big media splash. This might not be the best approach for every company, however, as the press might be reaching a saturation point in coverage of the carbon-neutral success story.

'Early movers like BSkyB and HSBC will soon be swallowed up by a wave of 'me too' activity and once a lot of people are doing this, journalists will start focusing on who isn't doing it rather than who is,' predicts Propper.

But it is important that companies prominently display information about their efforts on the corporate home page. Surprisingly, only 3 percent of FTSE 100 companies mention climate change on the home page of their web site today, according to r esear ch f rom Futer r a Sus t ainabilit y Communications. Two thirds (66 percent) talk about it at some point online, but it is normally relegated to the CSR section. 'It's really time for businesses to get ahead of the game and recognise this as a core issue,' says Lucy Shea, senior partner at Futerra.

Commercial Group decided to host a CSR day at Cheltenham Racecourse to announce its carbon- neutral status. Sponsored by its suppliers, the event attracted 250 attendees, including the company's current customers and prospects. 'We showed the Al Gore film and then I did a presentation and we all had lunch,' says Mann. 'The next day I had over 60 e-mails from people saying what a great day it was.'

Finally, it's important to bear in mind that a company's most critical audience will be its employees. 'If your plan to reduce CO2 emissions is going to be a success, employees need to be motivated and inspired to carry out necessary actions, such as installing timers on workplace lights,' says Shea. 'It's obvious there are a lot of opportunities to communicate this with your suppliers, investors and consumers but the caveat here is not to forget your internal audiences.'

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