Measuring carbon emissions is a vital first step if a company is to have any hope of changing behaviour within the organisation. It’s not until we’re faced with the hard facts – together with the cost implications - that we have the drive to make changes.
When we first started to use our own Accounting for Carbon Emissions (ACE) tool within Access Accounting, we were surprised by the results. Firstly we were struck by the massive impact that flights had on our carbon footprint. One overseas conference in Naples had seriously impacted the whole year’s figures. Had we chosen to run it in Nice, rather than Naples, then we could have returned far better figures and would not have diluted the attraction. Additionally, we were surprised at the analysis by employee – we fully expected one of our field-based sales staff, covering half the UK, to be the worst emissions offender. Again it was the impact of air travel, this time upon our FD who was taking regular flights to our Irish subsidiary that turned in a surprise result. Since then we’ve made a number of changes such as making use of video and telephone conferencing facilities and reviewing how we schedule meetings to make better use of time. This has not only reduced our carbon impact in certain areas, but also reduced associated costs.
In this vain, it was interesting to hear the Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas, decrying the work of the Government on addressing Climate Change at the Green Party conference recently. She spoke about the Government telling us all to “…change our light bulbs and turn our washing down to 30 degrees.”, and how inadequate that advice was. I agree wholeheartedly with her. Government advice needs to go much further. I believe that by measuring carbon emissions, businesses will reveal interesting results. Not only will these results form the driving force for significant change within an organisation, they will also help business cut costs as well.
Kevin Misselbrook
Customer Services Director
Access Accounting
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