10 steps to becoming carbon neutral certified
Becoming carbon neutral certified is a responsible action that I think every business should undertake, but the process can seem overwhelming if you've never tackled it before.
Here are a few lessons I learnt along the way. I find breaking down the process into simple steps makes it easier, then you just tick off one task after the other. The hardest step is probably just committing to doing it in the first place! These tips are specifically targeted at small businesses, accommodation owners, and sole traders like myself.
Carbon jargon
A broad range of terminology is used to describe goals and commitments in the business world when it comes to climate change. Some of these terms are used interchangeably such as ‘carbon neutral’, ‘net zero’ and ‘climate neutral’.
I like how simply some of the common terms are explained here.
What is the difference between Carbon Neutrality and Carbon Neutral Certification?
The major difference between becoming carbon neutral vs becoming carbon neutral certified, is the requirements that must be met to be a certified business. Carbon Neutral Certification is the official label that attests to an businesses true carbon neutral status for a full reporting period (12 months).
To claim the status of a Carbon Neutral Certified business, any emissions released within the most recent reporting period (12 months), must be completely offset. For example, a business may have its 2020 emissions inventory measured and offset today. Although the business would be able to claim that they were carbon neutral for that reporting year, they will not be able to say that they are a carbon neutral certified business. This is because certification requires measurement of the most recently completed reporting period - as this is most representative of a businesses current operations.
Pathzero have a great article explaining this difference (that I’ve borrowed from in the explanation above) - find it here.
Cost
I’m a service-based business with zero employees, and live a pretty low carbon lifestyle to begin with. So even though I became carbon neutral for my business and two person household combined, my emissions and offsetting were pretty minimal in comparison to what some other small businesses might be. I paid less than AUD$300 for my offsets in 2020-21, which was more than I needed (making me carbon negative as mentioned above). And I paid around $1000 for consultant fees to help me navigate the process. These are annual costs, not once offs.
The best bet would be to contact a handful of consultancies and get an estimate that is suited to your specific business and size. But what value can you put on becoming a leader in the fight against climate change? You’ll be showing employees, customers and even your kids how you’re adopting ambitious goals and working towards a solution.
Links
https://www.bcorpclimatecollective.com.au/business-resource-hub
Steps
This is how I broke down the process to become carbon neutral certified.
1. Decide what you want to certify.
Is it your whole business, your Airbnb accommodation, your event, a specific product, your personal household? As I’m a one lady business working from home, I decided to measure and offset my business plus my whole household as the two are so closely interlinked.
2. Decide how you want to do it.
You need to decide what level of assessment or certification you’d like to do. You could opt to do Steps 5 and 7 below via an online calculator (or the like) and not have your calculations certified. This means your measurements are not verified by an independent third party. I did this for a couple of years, before certifying last year for my B Corp assessment. It’s a cheaper option, as you won’t be paying a third party to verify your data, but it means that it may not be very accurate. You will just be paying to offset emissions.
The next level is to certify, which I recommend for full transparency and knowing that you are working to become part of the solution. You can do this by working with one of the companies in Step 4 (amongst others).
You may have seen the Climate Active logo around - this program is the only Australian Government-endorsed carbon neutral certification, however this involves yet another level of fees and certification. It’s just a well recognised certification and one of the highest levels in Australia, but it’s not essential to have that particular certification.
3. Decide which time period you want to measure.
You will probably want to measure your emissions in a financial year rather than a calendar year, to make it easier for reporting. As it’s almost mid June now, you can wait until the start of July and then use all your data from the previous financial year (which I do). Or, if you think you’re not organised enough yet, you can make a plan and structure to easily document all your data over the next year. See Step 5 for a few tips on how I organise my data.
The rest of the steps below assume you’re going to become certified carbon neutral.
4. Decide who you want to engage to help you.
There are a bunch of companies that can help you navigate the process. A few that I see recommended a lot are:
Pathzero - a suite of online tools and experts to measure, reduce, offset and publicly disclose your corporate carbon emissions. I chose to use Pathzero last year as the interface is very easy to navigate. They also have a great public page where your results are posted - see mine here.
Pangolin Associates - a certified B Corp and 1% For the Planet member with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
South Pole - a profit-for-purpose and certified B Corp with 30 offices over 6 continents..
NDEVR Environmental - a certified B Corp with offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Singapore.
Carbon Neutral - a consultancy based in Perth that is also a Climate Active Network member.
5. Measure your emissions for 12 months.
This generally involves the three steps below, but remember that you now have someone to hold your hand through this process - you’re not on your own.
Establish an emissions boundary (working out the relevant emission sources related specifically to what your business does).
Collect the required data.
Calculate your emissions.
This involves a lot of data gathering, so it pays to be organised. I found it helpful to set up a file structure on my computer that looks like this: Carbon Assessments > 2021-22 > then folders for water bills, electricity bills etc. Then as I get those bills in my email throughout the year, I save them into those folders so I know exactly where they are when it comes time to do my assessment.
For an office-based service business like mine, this step can involve measuring things like electricity, gas and water usage, flights taken, mileage with cars, office furniture and cloud based systems, postage and couriers, professional services engaged, telephone and internet, waste etc.
Depending on who you engage to help you and what systems they use to measure carbon emissions, you can often use the dollar amount you spent on a certain category as an estimate of your emissions. This was relatively easy for me to calculate with a full financial year of info, as I break my expenses down into categories and can easily push out a report. For example,. to calculate my embodied emissions from purchased IT equipment (including computer hardware/accessories and emissions from the use of IT and technical services) - all I had to do was check my expense report from the last financial year and add up what I’d spent in these categories.
A note - I used to offset my car through Greenfleet, and every time I took a flight I would tick the box to offset my flights. However, if you’re going to certify as carbon neutral, it’s probably best to do all your measuring and offsetting in one go. Some of those methods of offsetting by individual companies aren’t always transparent and might not be able to be used as a ‘credit’ when certifying a different way.
6. Identify where you can reduce emissions and create an emissions reduction plan.
Once you’ve measured your carbon footprint, you need to come up with a plan to reduce your emissions. This may include things like writing new business policies, reducing business travel, energy usage, or purchasing renewable energy.
7. Offset the emissions you can’t reduce.
Carbon offsets (also known as carbon credits) can be bought to offset or ‘cancel out’ the carbon emissions that can’t be reduced. Carbon offsets means you’re supporting projects that result in lowering the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and there are generally two main types:
Carbon offsets that actively remove carbon from the atmosphere, like planting trees to absorb CO2.
Carbon offsets that prevent more carbon from being released elsewhere, like investing in clean energy.
There are a number of carbon credit providers, however, these providers need to offer verified offsets to ensure a genuine emission reduction is occurring.
You can also become carbon negative, if you offset more than your measured footprint to have an overall negative footprint. Adding 10% to the total cost of the carbon offsets is generally not that much for a small business, and I think it’s well worth considering (I did this last year).
8. Get your documentation verified and validated.
This step is about providing documentation for the data you gave in Step 5 (measuring emissions). So, upload your electricity bills, proof of travel, or expense reports showing how much you spent on different things over the last 12 months. This is where if you’ve been organised earlier in the year, a lot of the documents should be easily found on your computer.
9. Enter into a licence agreement with whomever you are certifying with.
Some certification providers will enter into a licence agreement with you which allows the use of their ‘carbon neutral trademark’. This can be placed on products/website etc. as proof of your climate action.
10. Celebrate your hard work and shout it from the rooftops.
Put the logo on your website, email signature, and social media bio’s. Then become an advocate for other businesses to do the same - together we can make a difference!
