The launch of our new Accounting for Carbon Emissions functionality took place in London last week at Softworld, and while I was at the event I took time to walk around the show to see what our competitors were up to. I was surprised to see that none of them had any environmental messages and there wasn’t a single product on display that was aimed at providing environmentally related functionality.
I am amazed that my peers in our competitor organisations are not aware of the huge noise levels being generated on the topic of man’s impact on the environment and yet none of them had positioned their company with messages in this space. Even if we ignore the commercial opportunity presented by taking a leadership position in this field, we should all be responding to the growing demand from the community (which includes our staff and families) to be more socially responsible.
The software industry, especially the producers of management tools for industry, are perfectly positioned to provide better products for their customers and yet there seems to be a deep silence when it comes to producing useful functionality. Most companies are still just messaging that they are “carbon neutral” or that have a Corporate Social Responsibility programme in place. I believe passionately that we need to put more effort in driving awareness and making real changes. Tell your suppliers that you want real tools from them to help your business cut its environmental impact and let's all push for real change.
Mark Boulton
Chief Marketing Officer
Access Technology Group
Accounting for Carbon Emissions seems genius in its simplicity. Innovation of a so-called ‘carbon ledger’ by Access as a integrated part of their award winning Dimensions solution appears to make recording, measurement and reporting of a firm’s CO2 footprint very straightforward. Once again, they’ve perfectly anticipated the market.
Posted by: KJ Spear | February 29, 2008 at 06:42 PM