Positive Action and Change for Climate Goals

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12 January 2021 | Updated 03 March 2021

Claire Walmsley-Moss is reaching out to businesses, to remind of the importance in maintaining a level of progress towards sustainability targets during these trying times.

Walmsley-Moss is The Planet Mark’s Head of Marketing. Based on her passion for the natural world, she is fuelled by her desire to bring real change to the world and the communities within it. Walmsley-Moss brings her extensive experience to putting processes and systems in place to direct growth and raise the company’s profile. She believes in the power and potential we all have to transform our planet for the better.

A Broken Planet in the Decade of Action

UN Secretary General António Guterres’ proclamation that ‘our planet is broken’ as a result of climate change is another stark reminder that the time for debate is over and decisive action is critical. While we truly welcome the prospect of the vaccines against Covid-19 being rolled out, Guterres is blunt in his declaration that there is no vaccine for the natural world, which he describes as suffering from a ‘suicidal war’ waged on it by humanity.  

His objective to communicate the message that global emissions must be cut by 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels is welcome news, as we slide into the second year of the ‘Decade of Action’ and, as an organisation, ramp up our rally cry to businesses to help achieve net zero carbon by 2030.

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His objective to communicate the message that global emissions must be cut by 45 per cent by 2030 compared with 2010 levels is welcome news, as we slide into the second year of the ‘Decade of Action’ and, as an organisation, ramp up our rally cry to businesses to help achieve net zero carbon by 2030.

At The Planet Mark we are constantly reviewing and reassessing our own performance and that of our member community. We’re delighted that the voluntary target for our members to cut their emissions by five per cent each year to achieve 43 per cent reduction in global emissions is being exceeded, with members cutting emissions by 12 per cent last year. We are encouraging this higher level of achievement every year as it would deliver the 2030 goal.

Is it achievable?  We believe it is. 

We’re often asked by businesses, ‘what can we do?’, ‘isn’t the road to carbon neutral complex?’. Actually, it is far simpler than companies originally perceive.

Key Points for Energy Efficiency

There are some principal energy efficiency actions that all businesses can undertake. We can learn from the regulatory requirements such as SECR, which came into force on 1 April 2019. But we can also learn from the experience of companies achieving reductions by sharing knowledge and best practice to help all organisations embark on their sustainability journey.

We recommend that the actions to be reported should be the ones that have had a direct impact on the energy efficiency of an organisation and, where possible, that the resulting energy saving from actions reported should also be stated.

These actions could include, for example:

1. Installing smart meters and energy monitoring tools.

2. Changing your service and maintenance strategy to ensure vehicles or machinery operate more efficiently.

3. Moving a fleet from fossil fuels to electric vehicles.

4. Capital investment projects including more efficient lighting, pumps and motors.

5. Corporate behavioural change programmes powered by people who are driving change from within companies to reflect their personal values and actions.

Energy reporting is also a springboard to greater business benefits such as enhancing your brand through communicating with transparency a strong, compelling narrative on your energy efficiency actions to all your stakeholders, making your bids and tenders stronger by demonstrating your third-party certification, and saving costs on energy reduction in the business and per employee. 

The time for talking is over, people are taking action as they want to see positive change. The steps to carbon neutrality are realistic and achievable for businesses and individuals. We believe that our goal of achieving zero carbon by 2030 rather than at a later date will result in the environment being in a better position to overcome climate damage from years of detrimental human and business action. 

Picture: a graphic of a car made of leaves against a blank city background.

Article written by Claire Walmsley-Moss | Published 12 January 2021

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