Climate Action - Assisting business towards carbon neutrality

The World Environment Day on 5 June 2008 has adopted the slogan “Kick the CO2 habit”. This is a slogan that very much reflects the ambition of UN Climate Neutral Strategy, which commits all UN agencies, funds and programs to move towards climate neutrality. UNEP’s Sustainable United Nations (SUN) programme has its own ambition to help UN and other organisations to become climate neutral. But the question is how to move from commitment to action. From intent to realisation?

Kicking the CO2 habit appears to be almost as difficult as kicking some other bad habits.  One thing is clear however, you have to make up your mind from the start. UN has done this collectively by adopting the Climate Neutral Strategy, but this still has to be translated to individual organisations, to their top management and then – most importantly – be implemented at the working level.

Clearly –as with some other bad habits – the implementation of the new protocol must begin with the head making a decision, then hoping that the rest of the body (of the organisation) will not put up too much resistance. But management must do more than just make a decision. . If it is not going to fail like the New Years Eve weight reduction promise (10 kilos less by June!),  the head must be ready to put in the necessary time and effort. Once this is realised and accepted then the organisation is ready to go on the CO2 diet. The organisation will have to spend time and resources to get rid of that annoying CO2 love handle. SUN will here come in as the personal trainer giving support, helping with ideas as to how to loose more CO2 and finally to keep watch on the CO2 scale together with the organisation. But in the end it is the organisation itself that will do the work and take the credit for a CO2 slimmer organisation.

Not wishing to go over board with the CO2 diet analogy, we still can make a few observations of how different UN organisations are taking the CO2 diet that the Climate Neutral strategy implies:
1.    Many organisations are in fact quite enthusiastic and top level management is keen to get started and to work with SUN. What they expect from SUN is not so much rocket science as a realistic outsider view on the status and opportunities for reducing CO2 emissions.
2.    We start to realise that an important part of the emission reduction action plans we are elaborating with our clients, is the life cycle costs and savings calculation. Few, if any, organisations believe that reducing CO2 emissions will come for free, but the costs will normally be seen as less prohibiting if life cycle savings are taken into account. So even if the personal trainer (SUN) comes for free, you still have to pay for the gym!
3.    In some cases top level management has not (yet) been able to convince the body of the organisation that climate neutrality is worthwhile. This is where the benefits of reduced CO2 emissions to the practical day-to-day aspects of individuals’ work become very important.  While climate neutrality may be pursued for the sake of preventing climate change, the actual changes in the organisation often come with benefits to the individual employees. This may take the form of improved office equipment, modern office design, healthier indoor environment, improved opportunities for flexi-work, e-commuting etc.
4.    And then we have the several organisations where individual staff members are moving faster than the management. It is difficult to see what realistic situation this corresponds to in a normal diet. But for many people I believe it is a dream coming true when the body starts to shed CO2 weight without the head having to do anything.  We have not yet seen any organisation flourish under these conditions  but we feel confident that it is always helpful to have a few champions at the staff level to inspire management to take action

So with these words the SUN team in UNEP wishes all organizations good luck in kicking the CO2 habit, and to get rid of that CO2 belly. Happy Environment Day!