How to Create a Net Zero Strategy

Whatever your reasons, creating a Net Zero strategy doesn’t need to be complicated or expensive, but there are a number of steps you need to take which I will detail below.

1. Understand the terminology. Carbon Neutral means calculating your carbon emissions and offsetting them by buying Offsets or Carbon Credits. This can be done fairly quickly. Net Zero means that you have done as much as you can to reduce your carbon and have then invested in projects that actually remove carbon from the atmosphere (such as the Carbon Capture technology that Kier Starmer is thinking about investing £22b in over the next 25 years.)

2. Collect your data. There are 2 different areas to look at:
   1. Your direct emissions (think about the gas you burn to heat your office, the petrol or diesel in your cars and vans and anything else you may burn). This can be called your ‘Scope 1 data’.
   2. Your indirect emissions – from the electricity you use (Scope 2) and your supply chain (Scope 3) which is everything coming into and out of your business.

3. Create a Carbon Footprint Report – from the data above you can convert the stuff you do into carbon data by using Emission Factors you can obtain from the Government, expressed in terms of Scopes 1, 2 and 3.

4. Create a decarbonisation strategy – How will you use less carbon?  LED Lighting? Swap gas boilers for heat pumps? Buy electric vehicles? Tell a story – remember it’s a journey and you don’t have to do it all at once.

5. Think about offsetting if you are looking at Carbon Neutral first as is often the case, then once you have removed as much carbon as you can, think about Carbon Removals to work towards Net Zero. The UK is aiming to reach Net Zero in 2050.

This all starts with education and I offer free 1:1 workshops for anyone that wants to learn more:   Dave Culley, Auditel

Author: Dave Culley