Why We’re Recognizing Our Long-Standing CarbonNeutral® Clients

Businesses like management consultancy Bain & Company, which has been a Carbonneutral® company for eight years, and waste management company Grundon, which will receive an award for achieving five years of CarbonNeutral® fleet certification. While businesses like Sky and PurePrint are receiving awards for 12 and 17 years of CarbonNeutral certification respectively.

There’s one thing all these companies have in common. They have recognized the value of achieving bold climate targets and have chosen to make a clear and simple statement to demonstrate their action. No matter whether you’re an SME or a household-name multinational, no matter your location or certification type, we’re seeing businesses around the world embrace carbon neutrality as an immediate and cost-effective climate action, that not only reduces emissions, but delivers value to their business and beyond. It’s exciting to work with such a huge range of new clients including an aquarium, a man-made diamond manufacturer, a TV production, and new product certifications for tea and coffee and men’s moisturiser.

Put simply, carbon neutrality is part of the global solution to climate change that business can and will deliver.

We launched The CarbonNeutral Protocol back in 2002. Even then we realised that business needs a clear, pragmatic approach to structuring their carbon neutral programs: a blue print they can follow which enables them to make a credible statement of climate action and leadership. We update the Protocol every year through consultation with our Advisory Council of external business and scientific experts to ensure it sets the standard for carbon neutrality – and I have a well-thumbed copy on my desk.

You can hardly fail to have noticed the huge increase in awareness of our climate emergency over the last year. Business has a tremendous opportunity to step in and close the ambition gap to get us to a world with a 1.5 degree warming limit. We were recently delighted to announce that VMware became a CarbonNeutral® company two years ahead of schedule, and an adventure program called Expedition with Steve Backshall became UKTV’s first CarbonNeutral® production. To me, these new commitments are proof positive that carbon neutrality is rapidly becoming integrated as standard practice for business.

When companies ask me how they can be climate leaders, I tell them that CarbonNeutral® certification can act as the capstone for all their other commitments. It puts an internal price on carbon, which adds a financial imperative for reducing primary emissions. As Dr Jonathan Foley, Executive Director of Project Drawdown, said in our recent Q&A, “once you start measuring something, you start caring about it, especially if it’s a line in your budget.”

All of these clients, and the many others we serve, have understood that the power of business can create a more sustainable world. It is an honor to work with them in delivering solutions to the climate emergency that we face.

Mark LaCroix is Executive Vice President, Client Solutions at Natural Capital Partners

If you’d like to discuss how your company can become CarbonNeutral and join the growing roster of companies benefitting from credible climate action, please contact solutions@naturalcapitalpartners.com.

About carbon neutrality

Carbon neutrality is achieved by calculating a carbon footprint and reducing it to zero through a combination of in-house efficiency measures, renewable energy and external emissions reductions projects. CarbonNeutral® certification is awarded to companies by Natural Capital Partners and its secondary certifiers. See www.carbonneutral.com and take the CarbonNeutral quiz here.

About the awards

The awards were hand-crafted from FSC certified tree timbers, recyclable metals and a felt base made from post-consumer plastic bottles. They were finished with an eco-wax oil. All of the packaging the awards are delivered in is recyclable, biodegradable and compostable – we’re using Flexi-Hex® packaging, which began as a sustainable packaging solution for surf boards. All the awards were delivered to our clients via UPS CarbonNeutral® shipping.