The generally accepted and simplified answer is that being carbon neutral means any greenhouse emissions are balanced by the purchase of equivalent offsets. Why is being carbon neutral important, how urgent is it, where do the cows fit in? All important questions, and plenty of people with opinions and answers, so we'll leave it to them.
Our mission is very simply to enable small businesses to identify, measure, reduce, offset and report their greenhouse gas emissions.
This may seem like an odd question, but there are organisations who choose to certify as carbon neutral specific products, services or even events rather than the entire organisation. There are numerous valid reasons for this approach, and we can provide advice and assistance with this approach, but our core product is designed to assist organisations who wish to become entirely carbon neutral.
Greenhouse emissions are measured and reported under one of 3 scopes.
- Scope 1 includes direct emissions such as when your organisation directly burns fuel such as petrol
- Scope 2 includes the emissions caused by the creation of any electricity your organisation purchases
- Scope 3 includes emissions caused by other organisations whose products or services you consume or rely on
For most organisations not involved with power generation or heavy industry, the Scope 3 emissions will make up the majority of greenhouse emissions.
Once you have established your annual emissions, you have a number of options to reduce your net impact to zero. The most common is to purchase offset credits. The basic principle is that various organisations around the world are investing in projects which remove greenhouse gasses from the environment and they fund these projects by selling offset credits, meaning that the purchaser can claim the credit for the reduction in emissions.
A key part of the carbon neutral concept is the reduction or removal of greenhouse emissions from your organisations operations. This can involve the use of more efficient technology, changing behaviours of your staff or sourcing products and services from other carbon neutral businesses.
Once you establish your emissions inventory and calculate your emissions, our tool will help you identify and quantify achievable reduction strategies. The establishment of these strategies is becoming a vital part of staff attraction and retention, there are numerous options which can be achieved with no additional cost.
For a real-life indication of the sort of emissions caused by everyday activities, have a go at our free Household Emissions Calculator, it uses a lot of the same underlying calculations and will give you an accurate calculation of your household emissions.
Emissions caused by your staff when they are working from home or commuting to work are a cause for significant discussion, in particular since the Covid-induced shift to WFH situations. Leaving aside the fact that there is not yet consensus on the idea that organisations are responsible for and should report all emissions related to staff commute or WFH, the methods for calculating these emissions also vary significantly. Our tool includes a number of calculator options depending on the sort of activity data you have.
In Australia, official government certification is administered by Climate Active. The certification options and process allow for a simplified approach for smaller/simpler businesses but is still fairly intensive and costly compared to the relatively low cost involved in calculating and offsetting your emissions.
Greenhouse gas emissions are the core of what we are measuring and reporting. Greenhouse gasses are those gases which contribute to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation. The most common emitted greenhouse gas is Carbon dioxide ( CO2 ) and is therefore the default measurement unit, meaning that greenhouse emissions are measured in terms of tonnes of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e). Some gases such as methane and the gases used in air-conditioning have a much higher greenhouse effect and therefore have a multiplier to give a CO2 equivalent measurement.
Your carbon footprint is the total (gross) amount of greenhouse gases emitted in a 12-month period. Your footprint cannot be reduced by offsetting.
Carbon Neutral Certification means that you have either removed all greenhouse emissions from your operation (not actually possible) or that you have purchased offsets to balance your emissions. As above, the term is slightly misleading as not all greenhouse gases are carbon-based, nor are all carbon compounds considered greenhouse gases.