by Erich Schwartz – Green Space BC: Business in Vancouver
Historically, environmentalists and government have tended to lead the charge for sustainability, but it is now businesses that have taken charge. The shift in leadership occurred in Copenhagen in 2009 when the negotiations failed. Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, succinctly stated “after Hopelesshagen, governments have been left to the wayside”. While Barbara Kux, Siemens’ Chief Procurement Officer, stated “the Green race is on!” Both statements were made at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Amsterdam Conference this year on Sustainability and Transparency that was attended by some of the Greenomics team.

The conference concluded with a record attendance topping 1200 delegates from 77 countries made up of executives and senior managers from major international firms, governments, NGO’s and others. The GRI’s mission is to make reporting on environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects of performance as normal and as important as financial reporting. The GRI presented some very ambitious goals including having all medium and large sized companies, totalling 80,000 firms, issue ESG reports by 2015, or explain “why not”. As well, GRI intends to set the standard for integrated reporting (a combination of sustainability and financial reports) by 2020. Of note, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is targeted as a prime case study for the type of content that should be required in a truly transparent sustainability report. For example, detailed safety data would need to be included, since it was stated that BP released an exceptional sustainability report, and yet the disaster still unfolded.
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Globally, the world is moving toward proactively measuring Greenhouse Gases (GHG) and reducing their contribution to climate change. Europe has established the European Climate Exchange, which is the leading marketplace for trade in carbon dioxide emissions within Europe and internationally. While in the United States, the voluntary Chicago Climate Exchange operates North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide. In Canada, the federal government continues to move toward plans for reducing GHG emissions with the introduction of its Regulatory Framework for Air Emissions in 2007,the Turning the Corner: An Action Plan to Reduce Greenhouse Gases and Air Pollution in 2008, and has since developed Canada’s Offset System for Greenhouse Gases which will likely set the basis for a Canadian carbon market. Meanwhile, on the provincial level, British Columbia has mandated through its Greenhouse Gas Reduction Targets Act that the provincial government, including provincial ministries and agencies, schools, colleges, universities, health authorities and Crown corporations will be carbon neutral by 2010. Of course, this legally binding commitment is impossible to achieve without shutting the entire system down. The government’s solution is to become carbon neutral by purchasing carbon offsets. Specifically, it has established the crown corporation Pacific Carbon Trust to acquire credible GHG offsets on its behalf. A carbon offset is essentially a reduction of GHG emissions in one area to balance the emissions from another activity. So, does this mean you need to make your business carbon neutral too? Maybe.

The business case for buying offsets can appear obvious in some cases. For example, in 2007 Harbour Air became the first airline in North America to achieve complete carbon neutrality in both their flight services and corporate operations. Their competitor, Westcoast Air, became carbon neutral in 2009. Neither company stopped fueling their planes, so how is this even possible? They achieved this by calculating their carbon footprint, taking steps to reduce where they could, and buying carbon offsets for what they could not.. Harbour Air and Westcoast Air service a lot of government related travel, and by becoming carbon neutral they kept their customer happy. So, yes, good for the environment, but it is also a strategic manoeuvre that’s good for business.

What if your business is not particularly dependant on the government, but is dependent on a healthy environment? Another leader in the corporate stewardship community is Canadian Mountain Holidays that offers heli-skiing and summer adventure programs. They wrote their first sustainability report in 2004, updated it in 2007 and again in 2010. They have done a lot to minimize their impact on the environment, and noticeably entitle their reports “Moving Towards Sustainability”. This is an important title as it recognises that becoming sustainable is a journey, not a quick project or something for your marketing department to address. However, there is one thing they cannot eliminate and that is the need to fuel their helicopters, which leaves them with a carbon footprint that cannot be eliminated with today’s technology. Again purchasing offsets seems the way to manage this in the interim.

On an extreme bent, one could simply dismiss the purchasing of carbon offsets as just another tax. For, if all that is being done is spending money to be able to state your company is carbon neutral, then it’s money wasted. As a business person, the fundamental question is, do I spend money buying offsets so I can claim carbon neutrality, or do I spend that money on other aspects of my operation to reduce my carbon footprint? If customers are demanding it, then offsets are a short term fix. However, it does not change operational issues which will lead to a loss of competitive ground as we shift to a low carbon economy. To remain competitive, assessing your carbon risks and opportunities is critical.

If becoming carbon neutral is important to your business, there are a lot of offset companies with varying degrees of quality. It is an evolving market, and some analysis of the effectiveness of carbon offset purchases has been conducted, which would be worth reviewing before making any purchases. Check out this Ecobusiness Link’s assessment as well as this Climate Off Set Guide created by the David Suzuki Foundation to get a feel for the options and the quality.

Greenomics’ approach is to assess the risks and opportunities and dentify solutions that are quantifiable, presents your company in the best possible light, and edge you further toward a competitive edge in this evolving market.

Summer Season in Northern Hemisphere

For us folks who live in the north, it is prime holiday time and many of us won’t be staying at home. If you want to enjoy your vacation and be carbon neutral, ETHOS announced on July 9th, 2010 with the help of Minister Krueger, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, and Minister Yap, Minister of State for Climate Action, some of their newly available tools and resources for the tourism industry. ETHOS has developed two easy to use tools to help reduce carbon footprints for tourists and tourism operators. For the tourist, you can use their new Travel Offset Calculator, which enables visitors to British Columbia to offset their travel carbon footprint. For the operator, you can measure, report, and reduce your carbon footprint using the Gobi Carbon Management Tool.

Have a Great Carbon Neutral Summer!

Historically, environmentalists and government have tended to lead the charge for sustainability, but it is now businesses that have taken charge. The shift in leadership occurred in Copenhagen in 2009 when the negotiations failed. Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International, succinctly stated “after Hopelesshagen, governments have been left to the wayside”. While Barbara Kux, Siemens’ Chief Procurement Officer, stated “the Green race is on!” Both statements were made at the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Amsterdam Conference this year on Sustainability and Transparency that was attended by some of the Greenomics team.

The conference concluded with a record attendance topping 1200 delegates from 77 countries made up of executives and senior managers from major international firms, governments, NGO’s and others. The GRI’s mission is to make reporting on environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects of performance as normal and as important as financial reporting. The GRI presented some very ambitious goals including having all medium and large sized companies, totalling 80,000 firms, issue ESG reports by 2015, or explain “why not”. As well, GRI intends to set the standard for integrated reporting (a combination of sustainability and financial reports) by 2020. Of note, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is targeted as a prime case study for the type of content that should be required in a truly transparent sustainability report. For example, detailed safety data would need to be included, since it was stated that BP released an exceptional sustainability report, and yet the disaster still unfolded.

So what does this matter to small and medium sized businesses? Does sustainability reporting have relevance? Will it make the company more sustainable to simply report on its sustainability? The answer is yes, because “you cannot manage what you do not measure”. Developing benchmarks, voluntarily, puts a company at an advantage. Identifying risks and opportunities and opening a dialogue about what is important to your company and why will build internal and external stakeholder trust. Further, sustainability reporting is making some of the big companies look at their Supply Chain and they are asking some very important questions of their suppliers, which are often the small to medium size companies. WalMart, for example, is releasing this year it’s Sustainability Index, and will require its suppliers to align themselves with this new criteria.

Fortunately, there are already advanced tools and methodologies for addressing sustainability issues such as measuring a business’s Environmental Footprint. There are also many companies available to help you interpret and understand the data and build it into your strategic planning. But be warned. A sustainability initiative might start off as a side project or an assessment, but it will likely spread into your organization and transform the way you do business – for the better. Once sustainability takes hold, your company’s mission statement will change. Your by-laws will change to reflect that you will do all the things you do “sustainably”. It will eventually provide the opportunity to address sustainability issues right alongside your financial reporting. Combining your financial with sustainability reporting forms a powerful document to foster dialogue with your stakeholders for future planning. And don’t print those reports off either – post them on your website. In a time of radical transparency, there are no secrets, just people that don’t know yet. Download Report: Explorations – The Transparent Economy

The Sustainability and Innovation Survey Builds

We have had a good response to our request for businesses to complete our survey on Sustainability and Innovation, and we would like to build upon that success.

We are exploring a correlation between innovation and sustainability. Accordingly, this survey is to determine where companies see themselves today. We want to find out if companies think they are being innovative and if they are moving toward more sustainable business practices.

This survey is dependant upon you providing as accurate a response as possible. By contributing to this survey, you will receive a report that summarizes where your company is positioned relative to others based on your industry and size. If this is of interest to you, we encourage you to complete our survey. It should take less than 5 minutes. We will be collecting responses over the next few weeks. When we have collected enough responses, we will tabulate the results and send you our report for your business. Individual data is completely confidential.

Thanks to those who have already contributed, and please feel free to forward to a friend or colleague.

Take Survey Now!

We need to look at the business of sustainability holistically, if we are to make real progress. On one hand, the Province of British Columbia established the Innovative Clean Energy Fund (ICE) in 2007, to focus on projects that specifically address B.C.’s energy and environment issues. On the other hand, the same government continues to grant licenses for logging, the majority of which continues to be by clear cutting according to a study by Canopy Planet. As a result, the tourism industry is pitted against the forest industry, as both compete for the same natural resource in an uncoordinated manner.

While preparing a workshop for the British Columbia Partnership for Sustainable Tourism, now named Ethos, we researched the present status of sustainable tourism in this Province. Siwash Lake Ranch, roughly 20km from 70 Mile House in the Caribou, provides a backcountry getaway for executives, with all the creature comforts you would expect, while promoting sustainability. It is one of only eight properties in the whole of Canada that can boast achieving five out of five Green Keys. Sounding more like an outpost on the moon, they utilize Photo Voltaic Panels and Solar Collectors to generate off-grid electricity and decrease their dependence on fossil fuels. This was made possible in part from ICE funding.

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Greenomics Wins Big Five Competition in Amsterdam

12 March 2010 Amsterdam

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and ING – a 2010 Conference sponsor – today announced the winners of “The Big Five Competition” in which small and medium-sized enterprises competed for a prize worth €13,000 ($C18,000) at this year’s Conference Market Place. “This opportunity gives people from around the world visibility to some of the innovative and creative sustainability solutions coming out of British Columbia, Canada.” said Erich Schwartz, President of Greenomics.

With this competition GRI and ING aim to enhance the profile of small and medium sized sustainable organizations and provide them opportunities to present themselves at the GRI conference, the world’s largest gathering of sustainability reporting and transparency experts. Ms. Dailah Nihot, ING’s Head of Corporate Responsibility, said, “Given the global challenges in today’s world, it is clear we need more innovative sustainable solutions. The business community is an important factor in driving innovation and bringing it to the market. We co-launched this competition with GRI in an effort to encourage some of the sustainable forerunners and support them in building their businesses for the future.”

GRI received over 50 applications from nearly two dozen countries around the world. The jury, consisting of Eric Bouwmeester, Wilbert Lek, Nancy Kamp-Roelands, Jonatan Pinkse, and Giuseppe van der Helm evaluated the applications and their contribution to sustainability. The five winning organizations come from The Netherlands, France, Canada, the U.S. and the UK.

Participants of the 2010 Amsterdam Global Conference can look forward to engaging with the innovative Big Five Competition Winners throughout the two and a half day Conference. For further information on both the Conference and the Market Place, visit GRI’s Conference website.