About

Footprint Management Consultancy (FMC) is a new company which was founded in Santiago, Chile in April 2011 to offer its customers advice and support in Carbon Management, Water Management, Sustainability Strategy and Embedding Sustainability Culture within their Organization. Our ambition is to ensure that our customers who embark on environmentally focused projects maximize their benefits by truly embracing a new business culture.

Background

Chile has one of the most stable and fastest growing economies in South America, and has recently become a member of the OECD. There is a rapidly increasing awareness of the international demand for companies to demonstrate environmental awareness and action. A recent poll by a leading audit company showed that more than 50 per cent of Chilean companies already claim to have sustainability policies in place, but there is a huge range in the quality and penetration of these policies.

Many of the small to midsized companies who supply into the mining and agricultural industries are now facing a demand for knowledge of the GHG emissions of their products and services. A large proportion of Chile’s agricultural produce is exported into Europe, the USA and other Pacific Rim destinations. There is already demand for these products to know and show their carbon footprint, and to move towards carbon neutrality. The wine industry is probably at the vanguard of the response to this demand.

Business Approach

FMC’s strategy is to provide clarity to the businesses which are being confronted by these demands, to find fast and cost effective short term solutions and then incorporate them into properly defined and corporately owned sustainable strategies for medium and longer term planning and commercial advantage.

Strategy

FMC currently has 4 employees. The main office is attached to the residence of the founder of the business who works in this office with one other employee. The other two employees normally work from home, which means that there is no regular home to office commuting related emissions.

When there is a need to travel to meetings or other functions, we strive to use public transport whenever possible. When the use of private vehicles is necessary, we have already procured cars which produce less than 100g CO2e per kilometer. We always travel outside peak hours when possible and coordinate journeys to minimize distances travelled.

Within the office we maximize the use of natural lighting and ventilation. Gas for heating is procured via a green tariff which is already offset. We minimize our printing and recycle our paper and printer cartridges.

We are currently measuring the emissions from our office and travel activities, and plan to buy offsets for our non reducible emissions at the end of the year when we have a substantive (more than 6 months data) carbon inventory.

Tattersall Agricola is one of the leading suppliers of agricultural supplies and machinery in Chile. They  measured their carbon emissions for 2010 and are working on an action plan to reduce them in 2011, with a view to offsetting and achieving Carbon Neutral in 2012. FMC is continuing to work with Tattersall to instill environmental awareness within the company, and to spread the word to its customers, many of whom export Agricultural Products and Wine to the international marketplace. Another part of the group which rents and leases vehicles has also measured its emissions with an aim to go Carbon Neutral.