relations, marketing, etc. benefits. Even if a business decided that it would prefer to ignore environmental issues, however, it would find it very hard to do so, since today’s customers, whether they are corporate bodies or individuals, are increasingly deciding that they prefer to buy from suppliers with impeccable environmental credentials.
In fact, a commitment to measuring carbon footprints and making the results readily available in one form or another, can give an organisation a valuable competitive advantage.
And there are other benefits. Calculating carbon footprints involves examining an organisation’s own processes in detail and, to an extent, examining the processes of its suppliers and customers. These examinations invariably reveal areas where improvements can be made to increase efficiency, reduce wastage, cut energy usage or possibly all of these. The improvements not only decrease environmental impact, they also deliver on-going savings that, over a period of time, would often outweigh the cost involved in making the carbon footprint assessments.
So measuring carbon footprint is a good thing and it delivers a wide range of benefits, but how does an organisation go about making the measurements? This is where PAS 2050, which was briefly mentioned earlier, comes in. Developed by BSI, the UK’s National Standards Body, this is a Publicly Available Specification (PAS), which can be seen as stage one on the route towards a full British Standard. A PAS contains useful and practical information of the same high quality as would be expected in a full standard, but can be produced much more quickly and is thus better able to respond to fast evolving conditions.
PAS 2050 provides organisations with a detailed methodology for determining the carbon footprints of their products and, by doing so, it also lays the groundwork for consistency in these determinations. This means that an organisation can compare its own measurements over a period of time to gauge the improvements that it has achieved. An important point is that PAS 2050 has no geographical constraints, so valid comparisons can be made along complex supply chains.
The methodology detailed in PAS 2050 is not inherently difficult to apply but it undoubtedly involves areas with which some users will have had no previous experience. As a further aid to its use, BSI has also produced a comprehensive Guide to PAS 2050, which provides clear explanations of all the requirements and processes included in the PAS itself, a step-by-step guide to their implementation and invaluable examples of carbon footprint
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calculation related to three classes of product. These are a business-to-consumer product in the form of a croissant, a business-to-business product in the form of bulk flour, and a service in the form of hotel accommodation.
PAS 2050 itself and its accompanying guide can be downloaded free of charge from BSI’s website, which can be found at
www.bsigroup.com/pas2050.
It’s worth mentioning that PASs are subject to regular review and revision, and PAS 2050 is currently in the final stages of this process, with the new version expected to be available in April 2011. The proposed changes are at the time of writing out for public comment and are, in most cases, clarifications to the existing version.
What is noteworthy, however, is the level of interest revealed by the PAS 2050 and Guidance downloads, as well as by the ongoing revision process. Since its publication in 2008, PAS 2050 has been downloaded more than 30,000 times from across over 80 counties. Furthermore, following the mailing of a questionnaire to companies that had downloaded the original version at the beginning of the review process, more than 1,000 companies in over 90 countries responded with specific information. Both show very clearly that PAS 2050 is being received with great interest worldwide.
Gone are the days when organisations or individuals could be content to remain in ignorance of the environmental impact of their actions. Today, we all need to make sustained efforts to protect our fragile planet but, if our efforts are to be successful, we need the right tools for the job. PAS 2050, the world’s first standard for carbon footprint assessment, is one of those tools.
For further information please contact: Maria Varbeva-Daley at BSI on T: +44 (0)20 8996 7045
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