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Greenhouse Friendly™ Products and Services |
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“Emissions reduction is important to the bottom line of our clients. Get on board now – we’ve learnt that certification builds the trust of your stakeholders and can help avoid burdensome compliance costs down the road.”
- William Thiel, Technical Director, An Meá
As specified in our Business Principles, we value environmental protection. We also seek to lead by our own example. Therefore, in 2007 we set ourselves the goal of having no net carbon footprint by 2010.
What does that mean exactly?
For An Meá, having no net carbon footprint means:
We know the gross carbon footprint of our Australian operations.
We completed a comprehensive Life Cycle Assessment of our products and services to determine our gross carbon footprint and the greenhouse gas equivalent emissions we generate each year. Our emissions in the last financial year amount to approximately 140 tonnes of CO2.
Our footprint has been independently verified.
Independent verification of our Life Cycle Assessment makes our claims more transparent and reliable. We value transparency and the trust and respect it fosters.
We track the ongoing emissions associated with our products and services.
Our Emissions Monitoring Plan outlines the means by which we monitor our business activities and quantify the resulting greenhouse gas emissions.
We reduce our emissions where it makes economic sense.
Embedding our Emissions Monitoring Plan into our day-to-day business practices will assist us in determining the most cost-effective opportunities for reducing our footprint.
We purchase offsets for the remaining emissions from externally approved abatement providers.
We purchase offsets from providers approved by the Greenhouse Friendly™ initiative of the Australian Government. These offsets must be based in Australia, permanent, and verifiable.
Greenhouse Friendly™ certification is the standard by which we measure achievement of our goal.
In August, 2009, we achieved Greenhouse Friendly™ certification of our Australian operations from the Australian Government Department of Climate Change.
Why Greenhouse Friendly™?
It is an initiative of the Australian Government.
As such, we believe it represents a nationally recognized benchmark. This voluntary scheme has many similarities with the process of mandatory compliance with the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (NGER Act) that many of our clients will wrestle with. You can learn more about the Greenhouse Friendly™ initiative here.
Why is it important for your business?
We have expertise developed through experience – we “learn by doing”.
Our experience in producing and verifying a Life Cycle Assessment and an Emissions Monitoring Plan is of direct relevance to our clients, many of whom will have similar obligations under the NGER Act. See our Climate Change service offering for more information.
In the market for our products and services, our Australian operations are a net carbon neutral alternative.
We hope that clients who share our value of environmental protection will appreciate the choice of products and services that are Greenhouse Friendly™ certified.
We can craft a strategy for communicating about your response to climate change.
A sophisticated response to climate change involves more than reporting and offsetting your emissions. You may need to win the support of internal and external stakeholders or motivate them to act. Have a look at our Communications and Cultural Change service offering to learn about how we might help. We value transparency and accuracy in communications. We feel the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission provides good guidance for accuracy in climate change response claims.
“Completing this process and gaining independent certification allows us to identify our best targets for emissions reductions. It also demonstrates to our clients that we can successfully guide them through the process.”
- William Thiel, Technical Director, An Meá |
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