Environmental sustainability with GHG Protocols
Achieving environmental sustainability is easier said than done. Most businesses have a myriad of issues to solve when it comes to becoming environmentally sustainable. However, every little action that takes your business towards being greener is sure to have value.
One area where most businesses, especially those who are involved in the production of physical goods have environmental issues is emissions.
Controlling the emissions of greenhouse gases that your business causes will go a long way toward becoming a sustainable business. And there are, as with most sustainability issues, guidelines and standards that help you achieve this.
GHG Protocols are followed by over 90% of Fortune 500 companies that report to the CDP. The CDP itself is another very important environmental sustainability organisation that helps you disclose your business’s climate impact and emissions.
As such, the value of the GHG protocols is easy to see, and needless to say, it has become the go-to organisation for assistance with reporting emissions.
Using the GHG Protocol in business to combat global warming
Any business that wishes to report environmental data likely has reasons to use GHG Protocols. This is especially true for businesses that respond to the CDP. But it is not just businesses that can make good use of the GHG Protocols.
Cities and even entire countries have ways to use the protocols to improve their sustainability. Hundreds of cities from all over the world have already seen their governance commit to using GHG protocols as part of their sustainability efforts.
There is also the matter of the 2015 Paris Agreement, within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) and the commitment made by several countries to limit global warming by reducing GHG emissions.
Every business that operates in any of these countries, which includes 196 of the world’s nations (at the time), will have to adhere to tightened grasp on their emissions. And using the GHG protocols and its corporate standards to drive this improvement may be key.
How will the GHG Protocol Corporate Standards help your sustainable business?
The GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard are aimed at helping any business that is trying to prepare a GHG inventory.
The standards help businesses prepare a true and fair evaluation and measurement of their emissions and significantly reduces the costs involved in preparing such an inventory. And it is not just businesses that can use these standards either.
Other organizations like NGOs, universities and other academic institutions, government agencies and the like can use the standards to gain a strong understanding of their emissions.
For any business that wishes to become environmentally sustainable, the GHG Protocols are a necessary tool. They help reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, thereby reducing the impact your business will have on global warming.
The different uses of GHG Protocol
The corporate standards are not all that the GHG Procol has to offer. It is a larger, more inclusive framework that presents a few important standards that help your business in all your environmental sustainability efforts.
The Product Standard
The Product Life Cycle Accounting and Reporting Standard can be used to understand the emissions during the full life cycle of a product.
This is one of the most effective tools for conducting a Life Cycle Assessment. It is especially useful for an LCA that aims to uncover environmental sustainability issues. Using the Product Standard, a business can identify the areas or stages in a product’s life cycle where the most emissions occur.
And more importantly, the standards can help identify the biggest opportunities for improvement. This is possible because the Product Standard was created with input from more than 2000 businesses from 55 countries, over a 3 year period. It is improved with the input from industry leaders who have used and tested the standards within their activities.
There is also the possibility of gaining a competitive advantage through sustainable action. You can build better products that may even result in reduced production costs in the long run.
Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard
The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Accounting and Reporting Standard allows businesses to assess their entire value chain and understand their emissions.
This helps businesses identify sources of emissions that they are responsible for which come from outside of their own walls. The entire value chain of a company is assessed, and the opportunities for reduction are identified by the use of this standard.
Companies can work with their suppliers and other partners to take collective action to reduce emissions.
Project Protocol
The GHG Protocol for Project Accounting is a comprehensive accounting tool for measuring the greenhouse gas benefits of projects that aim to mitigate climate change.
The Project Protocol is written primarily for project developers, but it can be used by any party that wishes to incorporate GHG projects. They are not meant to be used to quantify emissions across an entire company, unlike the Corporate Standards.
Using the GHG Protocols to communicate business sustainability
It is not just internal analysis that the protocols assist with. One of the most important benefits of using GHG Protocol is its role in improving the sustainability communication of your business.
The Product Standard, for example, will help companies respond more effectively to customers who demand information about the environmental aspects of a product. The Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard helps businesses communicate the steps it is taking to drive sustainable action among its partners as well.
Environmental sustainability is the most widely understood aspect of sustainability, and using the Protocol will help your business communicate better with the concerned stakeholders.
And there are other ways to optimise your sustainability communication efforts as well, with the use of standards that are more inclusive of other sustainability issues such as the GRI and organizations like the UN Global Compact.
We, at SUSTINARO, specialize our expertise in sustainability communication. We help bring significant value to your business through the effective communication of your sustainability efforts, in environmental, social or governance issues.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY, and take your next important step towards achieving value through business sustainability and communication.