In this third of a series of climate emergency articles, I am looking at what I did after I declared a climate emergency.
This article looks at the practical steps that are the consequence of declaring a Climate Emergency on behalf of my business through the UN Climate Change’s Climate Neutral Now programme.
If you missed my first post: How to declare a Climate Emergency? or the second post: How I declared a Climate Emergency? in this series, you can catch-up on the options for my environmental consultancy to declare a Climate Emergency and how I declared my company’s Climate Emergency.
As readers of this website will recall, my company (onePlanet Solutions Limited) has been providing environmental consultancy for over nine years with the clear principle of striving to provide our services in the most environmentally and climate-friendly manner possible.
From my review of the available options, I chose to declare a Climate Emergency on behalf of my business through the UN Climate Change initiative, Climate Neutral Now, as it provided the most comprehensive option to:
- Develop a framework for my declaration
- Required a calculation of the carbon account for my business
- Provide public transparency through publication on the United Nation’s Climate Change website, and;
- Provide external oversight of the Declaration by the UN Climate Change.
Following my initial declaration, I was sent an e-mail with clear Next Steps about the process & three documents covering an outline of the Climate Neutral Now programme, a Pledge Appendix to further descibe my carbon emissions and actions that my business will take to reduce its carbon footprint & a spreadsheet for recording my company’s carbon emissions.
The Next Steps are to:
- Calculate my company’s greenhouse gas emissions (carbon footprint).
- Identify and implement ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, such as, installing efficient lighting and electric/electronic equipment, reducing heating and air conditioning levels, reducing travel, or reducing generation of waste (water, food, solid waste).
- Compensate for any excess greenhouse gas emissions, totally or partially, using Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) from the United Nation’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which is one of the carbon credits recognised under the UN Climate Change Convention.
- Confirm that my business will measure, reduce and compensate for its carbon footprint & report on the measurement, reduction and compensation of emissions each year.
Once I have completed each of these Next Steps with documentary confirmation back to the UN Climate Change, they will share the Climate Neutral Now logo that I can use to communicate my company’s participation & my company can be formally entered onto the list of participants.
During November, I will complete the documents and submit them to UN Climate Change.
In the next article in this series, I will share my completed documents together with my carbon emissions for 2018/2019 & my plans to reduce, substitute and offset my company’s emission for 2019/2020 onwards.
Look out for the next article and I welcome your comments and thoughts about the chosen declaration of a Climate Emergency.