Carbon Management Principles

Sustainable Harvest Consulting firmly believes that purchasing carbon offsets should be the very last option in your businesses carbon reduction plan.

SHC has adopted a sound structure for best practice in principals for carbon management from an industry leader, the Victorian Environmental Projection Agency (view the discussion paper).

The carbon management principals offer organisations a step-by-step guide to achieve their environmental objectives and capitalise on the business opportunities arising in greenhouse gas management.

Measure

Identify & Quantify

The first step in managing your company's carbon inventory is to identify the sources of carbon emissions then quantify the output.
This will include direct emissions (scope 1) produced onsite and indirect (scope 2) emissions from purchased energy and emissions resulting from activities within your company's operational and organisational boundary (scope 3). At a minimum the federal GHG protocol states that company's must calculate scope 1 and scope 2 emissions.

Set Objectives

What does your company want to achieve?

Setting clear and achievable goals for the short, medium, and long term will ensure consistency in approach and achievement while maintaining the company's dedication to your plan.

Avoid

The carbon your business can avoid emitting is the first rung of the ladder

Avoid describes the activities through which emissions can be completely stopped. Avoiding emissions can be a cost effective method of carbon management. Carbon avoidance can encourage sustainability throughout business processes minimising costs and resource expenditure and in turn reducing the risk or impact of a carbon price.

Reduce

'Reduce describes measures that decrease the emissions intensity of essential activities, for example making lighting more efficient'.

The reduction step can be separated into modify and recover.
Modify will involve replacing or upgrading energy consuming equipment or changing employees behaviour. Recovering energy can from equipment or processes can include heat capture from cogeneration and gas from wastewater or landfill processes.

Switch

Is less intensive energy available to your business?

Renewable energy is that which is not finite in supply or can be replenished once consumed. Onsite energy such as solar, wind, hydro and biomass and can greatly contribute to reducing your company's overall carbon footprint. Alternatively purchasing accredited Greenpower will indirectly contribute to your businesses carbon footprint and investment pressure for renewable energy.
Fuel exchange is becoming increasingly popular as businesses choose fuels with lower greenhouse gas intensity than energy sourced from coal.

Sequester

Should you sequester your emissions?

There are two ways to sequester carbon, naturally, through vegetation plantation also known as bio-sequestration or, artificially using technological solutions.

Assess

Are your results in line with the original objectives?

It is important to review your results in comparison with to the original objectives that were set by the business. This will help uncover reduction opportunities that may have been overlooked. 

Offset

The remainder of your businesses carbon emissions can be offset to achieve carbon neutrality

'A carbon offset is any project that indirectly reduces GHG emissions at one source by investing in GHG emissions reductions elsewhere'. These projects are typically in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and reafforestation. It is important to only purchase offsets from credible providers and these are normally certified vis the federal government initative 'Greenhouse Friendly' program. 

Review

What can be done differently?

The carbon management process must be dynamic to cope with changing regulation and changing prices for electricity and carbon offsets. The need to carbon offset should decrease over time unless an expanding company structure alters your organisational and operational boundary.