ACCELERATING
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

It all started in the 90s when international conferences took up a crucial issue of sustainable development. Decades after discussing climate-related challenges, now governments, people and corporations are actually assessing and contributing to the sustainability journey of the planet. The target set to lower the global temperatures is one such step. Such initiatives have turned people’s heads towards ever-pressing issues of global warming and associated challenges.

Here, often we are stormed with a sea of information that we focus majorly on the context rather than the significance of terms on an individual basis. Sustainability, climate change, net-zero, carbon emissions are the buzzwords. The context remains the same as that of climate change but fundamentally they are different. Everyone, including companies, tend to understand the climate lingo but hardly they are clear about the goals. Read on further and know the difference among the concepts of carbon-neutral, net-zero and climate positive.

Carbon neutral:

As the name suggests, carbon-neutral is the balancing out of carbon emissions from your firm. It is more like owning a complete responsibility for one’s own carbon emissions. Corporates and companies need to assess and analyse their carbon emissions. Such analysis gives an idea about the number of carbon emissions that need to be balanced out. It is then that firms plan to come out carbon neutral by saving an equivalent amount of carbon emissions somewhere else in the world.

Net-zero:

The Net-zero concept is a simple concept of balancing out the net emissions created. Here emissions are of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. These levels are reached when anthropogenic emissions balance out with the help of pre-determined activities.

Climate Positive:

It lies in that much-awaited stage in the sustainability journey, wherein companies or entities tend to remove an additional amount of carbon from the atmosphere. It has reached the level of achieving net-zero emissions and now stands beyond the same. This term is often used interchangeably with climate negative.

Is your company carbon neutral or climate positive or has net-zero emissions?

Well, after knowing these are different and important concepts, a firm needs to introspect about these. Raising these questions can help us achieve our environmental goals faster. Prior to that, your company needs to analyse emissions. Accordingly, you can set realistic goals and plan a roadmap. For the same, consult a team of professionals dealing in the same.

Hopefully, tech giants and corporates are taking steps towards assessing their goals and contributions. However, a lot needs to be done collectively on this pressing issue, until we balance out our needs with our climate’s needs.

Global warming is affecting the Earth more viciously than expected. The alarming rate at which the glaciers are melting and the sea levels are rising threatens the mass extinction of every species on the planet.

To counter this challenge, governments around the world came together and have designed a market-based system called carbon trading, under the Paris Agreement, to control and regulate the carbon emitted by businesses, especially the ones that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

How does carbon trading work?

There are multiple models designed to facilitate carbon trading, but the recent and successful one is the Cap and Trade scheme.

Cap and Trade Scheme

In this scheme, the government sets a limit on the emission over a time period and allots a fixed number of permits to compensate for the pollution. Each carbon permit is equal to one tonne of CO2 equivalent. Therefore, companies need to track their carbon footprint to comply with the carbon trading scheme.

Businesses that effectively reduce their emissions and manage to spare some carbon credits can auction them for money. Similarly, companies who exceed their carbon emission threshold limit can purchase carbon credits from these auctions.

Carbon Offsets

Another way companies aim to compensate for their exceeding their cap limits is by buying carbon offsets in the free market. Carbon offset refers to any activity which reduces the emission of greenhouse gases elsewhere.

Usually, the sellers of these offsets are project developers who design carbon-reducing systems and technology. Hence, each ton of carbon that is avoided polluting the environment counts as one carbon offset.

Advantage of Carbon Trading

Carbon trading has collectively involved the prime polluters from the developed countries to implement technologies that reduce their emissions. As these companies are majorly dependent on fuels, they usually exceed their allotted threshold, and hence are forced to buy carbon credit from the developing nations, providing the latter with the financial aid it needs.

Carbon trading also provides the flexibility to businesses to change their operations at their own pace. For example, small businesses can easily implement the latest technologies to reduce their carbon footprint and auction the spare carbon credits. Likewise, big corporations can buy these carbon credits to compensate for excess carbon emissions.

Disadvantages of Carbon Trading

Although carbon trading has lowered the carbon emission of many businesses, the scheme is still loose-ended and can be exploited by some companies via its loopholes. As the west is adapting to the concept, there�s still a lot of room for its improvement.

Nevertheless, carbon trading schemes are a work in progress and with stricter laws and controlled demand and supply of carbon permits, the scheme can drastically help the world counter global warming

Climate Change is a threat that is posing great danger to all of us. And Carbon Emission is one of the main reasons behind climate change. As of now, India finds itself in the top five carbon emitters along with China, the US, Russia & Japan (Source - https://bit.ly/3BMK0sn). It's a collective responsibility to fight against Climate Change and Companies can play an important role in this regard.

We will tell you about the exact course of action companies can take to fight climate change at an organizational level.

1. Measure and analyze the emissions

It's crucial to know for a company that how much Greenhouse gas emissions are happening at their watch & how are their existence is affecting the climate. For this, many private agencies calculate the carbon footprint and measure the organization's various emissions. Upon analyzing the situation measures can be taken to reduce the overall impact.

2. Reduce energy consumption

Reducing what is already being spent is wise than waiting it out & chasing the after-effects while watching the damage being done in real-time.

Turning off the lights in the office when not in use, Turning off the ACs when not in use. Not engage live sockets when they are not needed, etc can be some of the daily routine actions companies can take to reduce energy consumption at their end to minimize the daily addition of impact on climate.

3. Opt for renewable sources

Renewable sources of energy are again one of the best options; the organization should switch on to. Renewable sources like Solar power, Hydro Power, Wind energy, etc can be used instead of oil, coal, natural gas, etc which are exhaustible & creates an inhabitable environment for all kinds of life forms.

4. Control & Reduce waste generation

Reducing waste generation can be the most effective first-hand job for any company which will directly add value to their initiative against climate change. What it can do is; avoid using disposable cups, the number of paper prints, reusing printed papers as drafts, adopt ways for recycling correctly so that it is properly neutralized, etc can be some of the steps that can be taken.

5. Optimize employees’ transportation

As we know transportation is one of the largest sectors of greenhouse gas emissions but we don't usually consider it as an organization's problem. Well, it counts, everyday travel can bring about successively collective damage which can not be put to rest factoring the comfortability of commute. Nevertheless, introduce new ways to minimize this big chunk of your carbon emission quota. Green Vehicles which runs on CNG can be introduced to cut the emission happening from this part

6. Raise awareness

Being a crucial part of this earth, we are also accountable & responsible for how this planet has come to be. As an individual or an organization; raise awareness amongst peers, friends, colleagues, superiors, and all the stakeholders, so that the ball sets rolling everywhere.

These are some of the best ways which companies can adopt to fight climate change and turn our planet into something much better than what it already is. Continuous efforts will help us get closer and closer to win over the adversities we were doomed to face in the future.

Connect with us if you want to make a change and reduce your carbon emissions as a company/organization.