Carbon Footprint, Carbon Emissions, Business Consultancy
Helping organisations to improve their environmental performance.
Helping organisations to improve their environmental performance.
An efficient, sustainable management service is central to any organisation that aims to improve its sustainability and climate change goals.
Public interest in environmental performance is increasing, mostly due to popular documentaries, such as Blue Planet, which revealed the devastating effects that irresponsible sustainable management (or lack of) can have on the natural environment. As a consequence, consumers and businesses are becoming more environmentally conscious and are deliberately looking to do business with greener organisations.
Your organisation may have already adopted better environmental management policies in recent years (e.g. adopting green energy systems, diverting the majority of your residual waste away from landfill; recycling more material on site; ensuring the material collected is of a sufficient quality to guarantee that it will be used by reprocessors). However, currently at the top of the list, consumers and businesses are now looking for organisations to introduce circular economy principles, driven by new legislation and ambitious carbon targets, which means that your activities must continue to evolve.
These are challenging, but exciting times for the sustainability sector, and we can help and support your business to achieve better environmental performance.
Working towards Carbon Neutrality is a way of improving our environmental performance. One of the best ways of achieving this is probably by adhering to the Publicly Available Specification (PAS) 2060, published by the British Standard Institute (BSI)
PAS2060, sets out a framework that supports any organisation to achieve and demonstrate Carbon Neutrality, through: measurement, reduction, offsetting and documentation/verification.
1 - Measure Emissions
No one can claim that they are reducing their carbon footprint without measuring it first. The starting point is to establish a baseline and all further implementations must be measured accordingly and compared.
2 - Reduce Emissions
By adhering to the PAS 2060 journey, businesses can be helped to decrease their (GHG) emissions. For example, they can be helped to improve their general energy performance, saving money on energy bills. The organisation must develop a Carbon Management Plan containing a public commitment to carbon neutrality and outlining the following topics in their carbon reduction strategy: At this stage, it can be demonstrated that sustainability and cost savings go hand in hand. Investment is needed but the payback will outweigh the cost within a reasonable time period.
3 - Offsetting Emissions
PAS 2060 requires that the total amount of carbon emissions at the end of a reduction period be offset by high-quality, certified carbon credits from one of the PAS 2060 approved schemes. For example: The Clean Development Mechanism, The Gold Standard or any other High Quality Offset Scheme proposed.
4 - Documentation/Verification
Finally, this process ought to be verified by an independent third-party to ensure that emission reductions are permanent, avoid leakage (so that emissions are not increased in another area due to the projected reductions) and are not double counted. All in all, organisations can demonstrate to their supply chain, clients, and staff that their carbon neutrality statements are true and reliable.
Peninsula Environmental delivers PAS2060 consultancy through Auditel, where we have access to a highly skilled pool of advisers and consultants.
Sustainability can also be achieved by following other frameworks. Within the manufacturing sector, the OECD Sustainable Manufacturing (a methodology for environmental performance) is a very interesting one.
This framework was not designed to achieve Net Zero; however, it allows manufacturing organisations to follow a structured reasoning to reduce their carbon footprint. Just like PAS2060, this framework recommends the use of units to quantify operations. Quantification is also taken into consideration, where the user can actually choose what units they prefer to use.
Furthermore, this framework also provides guidelines for organisations to become more responsible Economy (profit, sales, innovation), Society (working conditions, human rights, etc.) and Environment (reduce waste and emissions, use energy and resources more efficiently).
OECD Sustainable Manufacturing Framework
Nuno is a consultant and the owner of Peninsula Environmental. He has been working in the Environmental and Waste & Resource Management Industries for the last decade, covering various activities within Project Management, Health & Safety, Procurement & Tendering, and Contract Management.
He holds an MSc in Energy and Environmental Management, is a Chartered Waste and Resource Manager by The Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM), and a Member of The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). He is also a BSI Associate Consultant for delivering PAS2060.
Nuno is skilled at handling corporate environmental management projects and issues, with maximum efficiency and cost-effectiveness. He is able to work well both independently or in coordination with a professional corporate senior management team.
Diana is the Peninsula Environmental Training Consultant and PA. She is a qualified teacher and trainer, fluent at native level in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She possesses strong leadership, presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
She can successfully communicate complex ideas to a variety of audiences, making it easy for them to understand and act upon those ideas.
Diana possesses a varied portfolio of activities in Delivering Training & Teaching, Interpreting & Translating, Educational Planning & Needs Assessment, and in Developing Training Materials to be used by teachers/trainers.
