Compare Your Footprint CEO and founder Will Richardson is on a mission to help smaller businesses measure their carbon emissions, in a partnership that sees ground-breaking carbon measurement software made available to Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce members at no cost.
We wanted to learn a little more about how Will’s company has put in place such an accessible way for SMEs to understand and manage their carbon footprint, so we gave him a call to get some insight into his background and vision, and what’s on offer.
A teenager with a carbon conscience
Will kicks off the conversation with a story from his youth that highlights his personal and professional motivations.
“I was looking through some old school reports,” he says, “and I came across a mention of a talk I’d given on carbon reduction when I was 14. Even then, it was something I was deeply committed to.”
He goes on, “We set up Compare Your Footprint five years ago, with the goal of enabling all businesses to be able to achieve an accurate carbon measure by 2025. We particularly wanted to make it accessible for SMEs and those at the smaller end of that spectrum, as it’s a real challenge for them.”
He describes it as “good-quality footprinting at low cost” – or, in the case of the partnership with the Chamber – no cost at all. But what is it about Compare Your Footprint that delivers that quality, compared to other tools available?
Green Element and the data differentiator
This is where Will emphasises the importance of data in carbon measurement – and this data is optimised, in Compare Your Footprint’s case, through a relationship with another company Will is involved in running, Green Element.
“Our relationship with Green Element means the measurement of a business’s carbon footprint is based on comparative data that takes into account over 10,000 worldwide carbon factors, with a very strict approach to filtering out unreliable items, such as nominal carbon reduction spend.”
He also emphasises the fact, however, that Compare Your Footprint is simple to use. “Upload templates enable businesses to easily enter the everyday variables that determine their carbon footprint - energy, water, waste, travel, freight, manufacturers, materials, cloud hosting, and many more – and get instant results, in the form of scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions reports.
Once they have this output, they can set targets and compare results, to monitor progress.”
As a next step, he explains, Compare Your Footprint can then also work with Green Element to support businesses with contactless and face-to-face training and courses, and help them put in place an Environmental Information Management (EIM) system to meet international standards like ISO 14001.
A proven choice for Chamber members
Notwithstanding Will’s determination to bring carbon measurement within reach of SMEs, however, he also points out that Compare Your Footprint comes with some big-name endorsement.
The company was publicly thanked by NatWest for its contribution to the bank’s SME carbon footprint strategy at the recent British Chambers of Commerce annual conference, for example, and its clients also include enterprises and corporates in the advertising and legal sectors, amongst others.
All in all, it's proof of Compare Your Footprint’s ability to work at both large and small scale, and deliver across industry types and sectors.
And with sustainability a growing focus for customers, partners, and investors alike, there has never been a more opportune moment for businesses to join Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce to take advantage of this.
If you’d like to learn more about the benefits of Chamber membership, including the free carbon calculator and workshops, call us on (01582) 522448.
