Top 5 Steps to Start Your Organization's Climate Action Journey
Solving the climate crisis is the biggest economic opportunity of our lifetimes, and essential to ensuring that future generations are able to thrive on this planet. All organizations from small start-ups to multinational corporations have a role to play. If your company is just beginning to work in this space, these tips will give you a sense of the first steps to take action on climate, beginning with measuring emissions.
鈥淪takeholders expect every company, large and small, public and private, to have a climate action plan at this point in time. To be effective, your plan must align with science, with climate justice, and with the principles of a just transition. There鈥檚 no听time to waste,鈥
says Pete Dignan, who co-teaches the new Climate Action for Business听executive program at Leeds.
The听program goes into the below steps and more in additional detail. It serves as an informative crash course in climate solutions for companies that are just starting out.
Measure your emissions
As is the case in any area where you are trying to make change, the process has to start with understanding your baseline. In the case of climate action, this means developing an understanding of your GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions. You will want to use the ,听from the GHG Protocol, which provides the accounting platform for virtually every corporate GHG reporting program in the world. You will be accounting for three types of emissions, Scope 1 (mainly emissions from fuel burned in owned or controlled assets), Scope 2 (emissions from purchased electricity), and Scope 3 (all other indirect emissions).听
Set a science-based target for emissions reduction
Once you understand your company鈥檚 baseline, the next step is to set a goal for improvement. This goal must be based on science so that your work contributes to the global goal to cut emissions in half by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050. These steps would mean we avoid the catastrophic impacts of climate change by ensuring that global warming will not exceed 1.5掳C. Companies can set appropriate goals through the (SBTi).
Engage internal stakeholders
To meet ambitious science-based targets, the whole company needs to be involved. Boards need to add members with climate expertise, train current members and be in alignment with climate goals. Climate goals need to be tied to executive targets, KPIs and compensation. Companies need to take steps to make every job a climate job by identifying how each functional area can contribute. All of this requires providing educational opportunities, aligning incentives with climate solutions and fostering a culture of innovation.
Reduce emissions
The steps to take to reduce emissions will vary for each organization. Some actions that many companies take i