Net Zero

There are a number of reasons as to why it makes sense to be on a journey to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions now, rather than to delay, but the particular journey does need to be consistent with the effective operation and survival of the business.

The first key reason is that becoming Net Zero for all scopes of emissions (direct and indirect) is complex and needs planning and coordination across all areas of the business. Successful businesses generally work to a plan over a number of years and due to the significant impact of Net Zero on a business, it also requires long term planning for it to be a success.

A related reason not to delay with Net Zero is that there are typically constraints relating to building or equipment life and budgetary expenditure that will need to be taken into account when implementing emissions improvement measures. For example, if there is a planned expansion or relocation of the business facility for reasons other than Net Zero, there may be a great opportunity to introduce a step change in emissions reduction measures, rather than incurring the likely greater costs of retrofit of such measures further down the line.

A further reason not to delay is that as the Government legislated deadline for Net Zero (2050 for the UK) approaches, the demand on professional services to support Net Zero is likely to be significantly greater and there will be less options available at an affordable price to meet requirements.

Finally, there are ways in which implementing Net Zero measures can save you money and the sooner you get on with them, the better for your business. This includes potential short term cost savings through reducing energy consumption and also establishing a position on Net Zero that is consistent with your customers’ requirements, thereby increasing the chance of securing contracts.

Often small companies do not feel they have the power to change larger organisations in the supply chain that they perceive are not significantly dependent on them. However, all parts of the supply chain will ultimately have to become Net Zero to meet legislative requirements and also for their businesses to be sustained into the future, given environmental pressures and increased scarcity of resources. Change can be brought about to a large extent through effective communication of the issues. It may be that the larger organisations are more receptive to taking steps towards Net Zero than might be apparent from the outside. By sharing ideas and objectives, there is the potential for increased cooperation and overall success for all. This communication might include conveying market advantage of operating in a way that takes environmental impact into account.

Ultimately Net Zero makes business sense. If you don’t direct resource into addressing it, you will likely lose far more in the future than the expenditure now, as you will not be operating sustainably. A hundred years ago, there were not the health and safety measures that are in place now. However, if you did not attend to health and safety nowadays, you would be out of business. The situation is not currently as extreme with Net Zero or other environmental measures, but this is the direction of travel, within the context of global climate impacts currently being at the worst end of the band of predictions. Of course you have to ensure business survival and particularly for small companies, it can be difficult to justify directing resource in the short term that could be directed towards survival in the short term. However, this underlines the importance of planning and projecting into the future. In order to work out what you need to do for Net Zero today, you need to have a vision of what you want the business to look like in the future and work backwards, building an understanding of measures that will be required to realise the vision, as with any business planning. Commercial considerations need to be taken into account with every step of the journey taken towards the vision and the aim should be to optimise the pathway to Net Zero for greatest business benefit, which should include cost savings along the way.