In this fifth article of a series of Climate Emergency articles, I am reporting on my business Greenhouse Gas emissions for my environmental consultancy, onePlanet Solutions, for the financial year 2018/2019 and steps that we intend to take to reduce our Climate Change impact.
This article looks at the output from the calculation of my business Greenhouse Gas emissions and the practical steps to reduce the emissions as 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 earlier posts in this series: How to declare a Climate Emergency? , How I declared a Climate Emergency?, What I did after I declared a Climate Emergency? & How to calculate Greenhouse Gas emissions for a Climate Emergency?, you can catch-up on the steps taken on behalf of my environmental consultancy to declare a 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.
Now is an important stage of my business, as we recognise that a Climate Emergency exists and that we must respond to this global threat by re-engineering our business.
The first steps are to declare publicly that we recognise the Climate Emergency and to follow-through with practical steps to determine our current Greenhouse Gas emissions and the impact that they have on the environment & to take further actions going forward.
Using the relevant conversion factors for 2018 and 2019, which can be found in earlier articles: UK Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Reporting: Conversion Factors 2018 & UK Greenhouse Gas Reporting: Conversion Factors 2018, our business Greenhouse Gas emissions were calculated from our known activities for the financial year: 2018/2019.
So, with a distant drum roll introducing the final figures, here is the declared Greenhouse Gas emissions for my business for the financial year 2018/2019:
| Scope | Emission Source | tonnes CO2e |
| 1 | Car Journeys | 1.78 |
| 2 | Electricity | 0.39 |
| Gas | 0.56 | |
| 3 | Air Travel | 25.94 |
| Hotels | 2.75 | |
| Public Transport | 0.26 | |
| Waste Disposal | 0.002 | |
| TOTAL | 31.68 |
It should be noted that the Greenhouse Gas emissions from the main business activities have been included. However, there are minor exceptions related to the goods and services, such as the purchase of new computer equipment, such as laptops and network switches, and use of Microsoft Office 365, which have not been included as this information is not readily available at the present time.
Once this information is available, I will ensure that these goods and services and incorporated in my business Greenhouse Gas emissions.
There is some work to be done to reduce the business emissions particularly for air travel, which has become an integrated part of my business to support our international clients.
In my next article in this series, I update on the immediate actions that can be take using the carbon offsetting process to ensure my business is Carbon Neutral in the short-term & more about the transparency and accountability through the UN Climate Change’s Climate Neutral Now programme.
Look out for the next article and I welcome your comments and thoughts about declaring a climate emergency and reporting on the Greenhouse Gas emissions of your business.
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