Doing our bit for the environment means a lot to us. So we were over the moon to learn that in 2021-22 we reduced our carbon emissions by 20 per cent, according to the results of our annual carbon audit.
We gained carbon neutral certification from the Federal Government’s Climate Active program in 2020 and have set ourselves a target of a 10 per cent reduction year on year to achieve our goal of net zero emissions by 2030.
Our 20 per cent reduction last year was largely thanks to switching to a green energy supplier, among a number of other initiatives you can read about here. We aimed to achieve a 10 per cent reduction this year by rolling over company vehicles to EVs and having our team focus on lower emissions on their commute to work – by walking, riding, carpooling and taking public transport. The years to follow will become increasingly difficult.
The journey to net zero is challenging, because it requires behaviour change and many things are out of our control — like not having access to carbon neutral computer equipment and the increase in landfill thanks to the recent end to soft plastic recycling.
It takes management support and a full team commitment to stay the course and focus on the things that you can control and that make the biggest impact.
Things that help us stay on track:
- Having a carbon emissions reduction strategy and focusing on the biggest pollution sources.
- Having a grass roots approach to managing our carbon footprint and empowering staff to drive carbon reduction programs and projects.
- Checking in regularly as a business to evaluate how our emissions are tracking throughout the year and adjusting accordingly where possible.
- Engaging an independent, external advisor to keep us on track, provide advice and help us with the certification process (we can highly recommend Suzanne Ridding of Sustainable Business Consultants).
- Talking regularly with the team about what we can individually do to contribute to a lower carbon footprint.
- Choosing an organisation to purchase offsets from that is meaningful to us – we have chosen the Aboriginal Carbon Foundation, which supports carbon farming projects in the Northern Territory.
If your business is interested in being carbon neutral, or starting the journey towards net zero, we’d be happy to share our story so far with you. If you’d like to learn more about our carbon reduction strategies, you can read about them here.