The key to success for an effective emissions reduction programme is to have a well-organized, performing structure and a clear process in place. The first step is to decide to go climate-neutral: that obviously comes first. Then we need to count the GHG emissions for which we are directly responsible and analyse where are those emissions coming from? Then comes the need to find out what we must do to lower or stop them, what options we have, and to act on that knowledge. The last steps are to evaluate what we have done, identify flaws and then start all over again, hopefully taking into account the lessons learnt in the first round.
Get a firm commitment
Before any of this is going to happen, of course, someone has to take a clear decision to work to become climate neutral. It will certainly be an individual’s decision, but for more complex set-ups, it will be wider than that. For it to get very far, it will need positive political leadership at the highest level and wide popular agreement that the effort is worth making. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol under the convention represent global leaders’ commitment to confront the problem. The degree to which they succeed will show the depth of that commitment. The British environ-mental writer Crispin Tickell once spelt out his recipe for avoiding dangerous climate change: “Leadership from the top, pressure from below – and an instructive disaster.” Perhaps a combination of the first two elements may spare us the need for the third.
Once the decision is taken at the highest level (of a country, city or other group) it can be invaluable to have another senior figure to champion climate neutrality, addressing senior management and workers alike. “Senior” need not mean a traditionally respectable pillar of society: the term can include anybody who is widely known and popular. Footballers and pop stars make ideal champions.
Then comes the stage of assessing the situation by counting total emissions and analysing their source – making an inventory, in other words. At least as important is to analyse the options available for reducing them. With those results it is possible to set priorities and targets. To what extent can we reduce our own emissions and how much do we have to offset? How long should it take (Norway had originally set itself a deadline of 2050 and recently moved it to 2030)? Where will policymakers get the biggest bang for their buck – where should resources and efforts be concentrated to achieve the best and most visible results? And what yardsticks will be needed to measure progress towards targets (this question is covered in more detail below)? And who will guarantee that progress really is being made?
After settling the broad principles, the next stage is to develop a detailed action plan which puts flesh on the bones of the strategic outline. This plan will include a timeframe, responsibilities, the targets to be achieved and the indicators used to gauge progress.
Implementing the plan, the moment when deliberation becomes action, comes next, and it has to be accompanied by systematic monitoring of the process. This in turn is followed by evaluation of the results and compilation of a list of suggested improvements, with results documented and reported, so that experience gained of what does (and does not) work is shared with those who can put it to good use.
Finally, with all that completed, the cycle starts all over again, only this time incorporating the lessons learnt. Science and technology move on, regulations become tighter, the standards people demand go up. So the second cycle will go further than the first, and the process will continue, each successive phase building on and improving on what went before.
It should not need saying (but possibly it does) that throughout the entire process it is vital to ensure that you speak – and listen – to everyone who has agreed to support it, in order to make sure that they continue to do so. Feeling that you are being ignored is a very effective route to losing confidence in someone else’s big idea. Also, make sure you try continually to win new supporters, and explain what you are doing to the public – tax payers are interested in where their money goes, and as consumers they want to know what the company providing their goods is doing to protect the climate. Give them the opportunity to participate too. Here it can be useful to involve the media in telling people about what you are doing.
The whole scheme will obviously need adapting to the group concerned: what works well on a country-wide scale may be rather too elaborate and complex for an SME or an NGO, for example. This organizational set-up in a cycle is closely aligned with the approach employed in environmental management systems.
Environmental Management Systems
One potentially useful tool that businesses as well as local administration can make use of for the process of starting to work towards
climate neutrality is an environmental (or sustainability) management system or EMS based on a simple principle, the Continual Improvement Cycle: Plan – Do – Check – Act. An EMS focuses on environmental management practices, rather than the activities themselves, so it will ensure that proper procedures are in place and training for workers exists, but it will not specify the methods to use or the frequency that a pollutant needs to be sampled or monitored.
It can assure managers that they are in control of processes and activities that impact on the environment, and confirm to employees that they are working for an environmentally responsible organization. Beyond this, it helps the company to provide assurance on environmental issues to customers, the community and regulators, and to ensure compliance with environmental regulations.
The basic EMS framework is established by the international standard ISO 14001 (developed by the International Organization for Standardization). Another EMS framework is EMAS, the European Eco Management and Audit Scheme, used by numerous companies throughout the EU. Many local authorities apply the management system to certain sectors of their administration or certify their whole operations.
A national example for an environmental certification system is the Norwegian Eco-Lighthouse Programme. Through the programme companies reduce their impact on the environment, cut costs and benefit from their status as an environmentally responsible company. The “Eco-Lighthouse” concept was born in 1996, when six municipalities were selected to participate in “Sustainable Communities,” a Norwegian Local Agenda 21 pilot programme. The city authorities presented a proposal to nine companies as diverse as a hotel, a housepainter, an ice-cream factory and a wood product company. The city paid a consultant to do an environmental audit and draw up a three-year plan for reducing resource consumption and environmental impact. In return, the firms undertook to carry out the plan and share their experiences with other firms in the same industry. Based on the audits, criteria for local, industry-specific environmental certification schemes were developed.
The concept spread further and since 2006, the Norwegian capital Oslo has required Eco-Lighthouse certification from all its public enterprises, from hospitals to waste management facilities and down to kindergartens.