Carbon emissions are an increasing concern for businesses and individuals alike. From a legal standpoint, mandatory carbon compliance requirements now apply to many more companies than before – but it is no longer simply a legal issue.
For many buyers and investors, environmental responsibility now influences where they spend and place their money, so getting your carbon strategy right will also potentially enhance your bottom line.
But to reduce your carbon footprint, you have to be able to measure it in the first place, and traditionally, this has been a time-consuming process.
Now, however, all that’s changing.
Support with carbon compliance and reduction
At Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, we are committed to supporting local businesses like yours in their drive towards sustainability, and we recognise that the key to success is providing solutions for both carbon measurement and carbon reduction that are simple and effective.
This is critical for two reasons: firstly, if it’s not straightforward it won’t be readily adopted, and, secondly, if it is too complex it will potentially absorb resources to the point where it harms your ability to carry out your core business.
To this end, 2022 sees us entering into a new partnership with Compare Your Footprint and Green Element Academy.
This will provide you with two levels of support, the first being an online carbon footprint calculator, and the second being help to enable you to implement an Environmental Management System (EMS).
Calculating your carbon footprint
Compare Your Footprint’s online carbon footprint calculator enables you to enter relevant data such as gas, electricity, water, waste, travel, freight, and material used, to produce a report, in a mouse-click, which shows your baseline emissions, with a year-on-year comparison.
It also highlights your carbon hotspots – that is, the areas where reducing your carbon output will make the greatest difference.
The calculator includes benchmarking software that shows how your business compares against others in the same industry – potentially an important competitive differentiator!
Managing your environmental impact
The Academy, for its part, delivers an online EMS implementation course. An EMS is essentially a toolkit that enables you to take clear and defined actions to monitor, improve, and control your environmental impact. This approach meets ISO 14001:2015, which is the world’s most successful environmental standard.
The EMS helps you manage aspects such as environmental policies, data gathering, corporate responsibility, auditing and more. It is clear and methodical, and therefore cost-effective.
The course takes you, step by step, through creating and implementing an EMS, and offers coaching calls so you can ask questions and resolve issues directly, at no additional cost.
The Academy also provides a helpful guide, with practical tips for achieving your carbon reduction targets.
How to get started
If you’re interested in getting access to these resources, then you can get in touch with us here.
Carbon emission figures are a hot global issue, but positive change often starts at a local level – and through this initiative, Bedfordshire businesses like yours can now be at its forefront.
