Reduce Your Carbon Footprint With a Renewable Energy Certificate

Have you puzzled how you can enhance your sustainability messaging? As consciousness is promptly expanding around the effect companies can make in the struggle from climate alter, sustainability messaging as a resource for client engagement is a lot more vital than ever. In fact, a 2019 Nielsen study found that much more than 30% of buyers would pay out far more for an environmentally pleasant product. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed sustainable acquiring even further, with extra than  60% of shoppers surveyed in 2020 reporting to have designed much more environmentally welcoming purchases. In convert, retailers are wanting to meet up with shopper demand by sourcing far more sustainable products for their cabinets.

A significant way that firms are publicly committing to sustainability targets is as a result of making climate action designs that define their weather strategies. One particular of the important components of making a local weather motion approach is acquiring ways your corporation can lessen its carbon footprint. 

What is a carbon footprint, and why does it subject? 

A carbon footprint is a whole stock of the quantity of greenhouse gasses—such as carbon dioxide and methane—that are emitted as a consequence of your organization’s company actions. Calculating your carbon footprint can be a handy device to set sustainability techniques. For case in point, if your carbon footprint reveals a large amount of emissions in your transportation activities, you can locate means to cut down those emissions by switching to a lot more environmentally pleasant transportation selections or buying carbon offsets (certificates which each individual stand for a reduction of 1 metric tonne of carbon dioxide emissions).

A handful of vital techniques to lower your business’s carbon footprint are: 

1. Reduce strength use by employing power effectiveness procedures.
2. Lower paper and plastic waste together your operations and offer chain. 
3. Apply a hybrid or remote workstyle to decrease emissions from employee commuting. 
4. Monitor emissions across your supply chain. 
5. Electric power your operations with renewable electricity.
6. Purchase carbon offsets for your remaining emissions.

Though it’s always most effective to concentrate on reducing emissions ahead of offsetting them, offsetting is an successful way to account for the emissions you are unable to lower. 

The variations in between RECs and offsets

Renewable electrical energy arrives from pure resources or processes that are continually replenished, this sort of as solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, or biomass. By replacing high-emitting fossil fuels these kinds of as coal and all-natural fuel, use of renewable electrical power can substantially reduce emissions. A Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) is a tradeable certification (ie, it can be traded separately from the electrical power among the generator and other get-togethers) that signifies the renewable attributes of 1-megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable electric power. A single of the simplest means you can use RECs is by subscribing to your utility’s renewable electrical power merchandise for the properties you very own. Nevertheless, if you do not own your creating, never stress! RECs allow for you to take part in the renewable vitality market by retail options, these types of as shopping for standalone (or “unbundled”) RECs from a marketer, broker, or provider. Getting RECs can help construct a current market for renewable electrical energy, in which elevated need for renewable electrical energy helps lessen traditional electrical energy technology in the area wherever the renewable electrical energy generator is positioned. According to the FTC Inexperienced Guides, by purchasing RECs along with your regular delivered electricity, you can efficiently claim that you are employing renewable electrical power. 

For much more data on distinctive strategies you can purchase renewable strength, see Eco-friendly-e^® Marketplace: An Introduction to Acquiring Choices for Buyers. For means on buying Eco-friendly-e^® licensed renewable energy in your space, you can visit www.buycleanenergy.org, or for a complete record of Eco-friendly-e^® sellers, see www.environmentally friendly-e.org/qualified-resources. 

A carbon offset is very similar to a REC in that it is also a tradeable certification, but it signifies the reduction of 1 metric tonne (mT) of carbon dioxide emissions. Your order of carbon offsets resources assignments that decrease GHG emissions by either capturing (ie, “sequestering”) GHGs so that they are not able to be unveiled into the environment, or steering clear of/decreasing emissions that would have normally been made. Examples of carbon offset jobs include landfill methane seize, improved forest management, and vitality effectiveness initiatives.

While there are lots of REC and carbon offset companies globally, not all of them adhere to best methods in good quality sourcing, accounting, and reporting. Sourcing RECs or offsets that are accredited by an impartial third get together is a good way to make sure that your purchase is as impactful as it can be.