Our VP Climate Action, Renaud Bettin, shares how your reduction roadmap can drive business growth and opportunities.
You made your climate commitments a little while ago. Your investors approved, your employees felt proud, and your customers applauded. Now it’s time to show some progress. Here are 5 ways to keep your carbon on track and turn climate action into a success driver for your business.
1. Better, faster, stronger together
Emission reduction is a collective responsibility. It’s defined that way by science (Greenhouse Gas Protocol), driven by ethics (we share the same future), and is simply smart business (with more people, you’ll reach your goals faster).
Start with scopes 1 and 2. These are your direct emissions or those produced by your energy consumption. Easy to spot means easy to fix. For instance, switch from fossil fuels to low-carbon green electricity, put a cap on business trips by plane, or organize low-carbon team offsites. You could even use your sustainability program as a corporate culture booster.
Next, address your indirect scope 3 emissions. These are the emissions in your value chain, from activities with manufacturers, suppliers, digital providers, and other partners. They contribute to the running of your business and are often the biggest share of your footprint. That’s why you need to work together with your partners to measure and reduce your collective emissions.
In some cases, it could help strengthen your partnerships. For example, HP launched the Amplify Impact program to drive sustainability within its large network of partners by providing them with tools and resources to start their climate journeys.
2. Be smart, go digital
Let’s be real: mapping carbon footprints in spreadsheets doesn’t scale. In a world of data automation and APIs, there’s no need to go through the pain of collecting data one cell at a time.
Digital carbon tools help connect all stakeholders, centralize your carbon data, and facilitate action and reporting. They’ll keep your carbon on track.
And with the massive data collection and analysis that scope 3 requires, you want a tool that can accurately measure, compare, and effectively identify reduction actions across your entire organization and value chain.
Quantifying your impact is how you’ll meet investors’ and regulators’ increasing reporting demands. And become a resilient, forever company.
3. Turn risks into opportunities
Left unchecked, climate change could cost the global economy $178T by 2070, according to Deloitte. But if we accelerate the low-carbon transition, we could gain $43T over the next 50 years instead.
By measuring early and continuously, you can anticipate climate risks and opportunities, and lead the green innovation wave in your industry. It’s helped our customer NCS Technologies save $1M by optimizing their supply chain.
As a business collaborating with partners in various industries, your collective action can have a massive impact. Start by looking into the carbon-intensive areas of your business: how dependent are you on fossil fuels, and what needs to change to grow into a resilient, low-carbon company? If it’s in your product manufacturing, look for eco-design alternatives. If it’s in your investments, there are plenty of planet-friendly industries in need of investment.
Use carbon data to inform your business strategy, make structural changes, and any growth-related decisions moving forward.
4. Don’t just speak about impact, drive it
As mentioned in the latest IPCC report, we can’t wait until 2049 to support projects that help businesses, local communities, and natural ecosystems adapt to the consequences of climate change.
You have the power to drive fundamental change and help meet your country’s climate targets.
Here are 3 ways to do that:
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Avoided emissions: Your products or services help others reduce or sink carbon, e.g. an electric car company will help its customers have a lower carbon footprint than if they’d bought a diesel car.
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Carbon credits: Build a coherent investment strategy that supports projects that remove or reduce emissions. That way, you contribute to getting us closer to our 1.5°C target, meeting your country’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and filling the climate funding gap (COP27 is coming 👋).
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Climate dividends: Build a portfolio of climate projects. Your investments will get you a share of a climate project that’ll bring annual returns in tCO2e. This is a great way to stay accountable and on track.
All three can play an active part in your climate journey by using them as indicators to measure and communicate your positive impact.
5. Track & tell
It’s great that you’ve set ambitious carbon goals. Now you have to live up to your green reputation. The best way to do that is to keep your communication clean.
Got a climate investment strategy planned out over two years? Say it. Your emissions increased because of a geopolitical situation? Tell us what you’re going to do about it. No hiding, fake claims, or half-truths.
The great thing about carbon management is you get loads of data to back your reporting. This is how you’ll see your progress against your goals and can defend yourself over greenwashing claims.
Carbon is a complex, evolving world, so it’s best to keep it simple. Not everyone has the same level of education or knows about the latest methods. Make your climate communications accessible to a 9-year-old, with clear indicators such as the evolution of your emissions, the composition of your carbon footprint, climate targets, and level of contribution.
As I often tell our customers: A climate journey is a long road, with many drivers behind the wheel.
From team culture to partner collaboration, NDC contribution to customer trust, this collective journey can unlock growth opportunities for your company, your network, and our future.
Let’s work together to better our planetary impact.
