Published: September 29 2009, 08:57 AM | no comments
by Viki Paige

The team is very excited to share an important news announcement with our readers today.  We have announced that Tesco the UK’s biggest retailer and the world’s third largest grocery retailer, has selected CA ecoSoftware to help fulfill its long-term commitment to drive down carbon emissions across its global operations.

With 468,000 Tesco employees working at more than 4,000 locations across 14 countries, the task of accounting for carbon emissions is time-consuming and complex. Tesco has implemented CA ecoSoftware to help increase the efficiency, speed, and accuracy of its carbon accounting process, enabling the company to more effectively track progress in pursuit of its ambitious carbon reduction goals.

“When we announced our plan two years ago to reduce our carbon footprint by 50% across all of our global operations, we knew we were taking on a big task,” said Mike Yorwerth, IT director of Tesco plc. “Since that time a number of people across the business have been involved in measuring, documenting and reporting on our emissions—a time-consuming, largely manual task. We’re also overseeing hundreds of projects around the world designed to reduce our carbon footprint, all of which need to be prioritized and measured. With CA ecoSoftware, we expect to streamline the process of data management, helping to reduce errors and operational expenses, and improve our ability to communicate major milestones.”
 
Based on ambitious targets announced in 2007 using 2006 as a baseline, Tesco plans to halve emissions from existing buildings by 2020; halve distribution emissions of each case of goods delivered by 2012; and halve emissions from new stores by 2020. The company has already halved its energy use per square foot in its UK stores and is diverting 100 percent of waste from its UK business away from landfill, achieving this target almost a year ahead of schedule. 

Tesco also joined our team in London yesterday for an event focused on how enterprises are responding to the new Carbon Reduction Commitment legislation (check out our posts here, here, and here). 

If you’d like to learn more, you can read the full press release here.  You can also visit our CA ecoSoftware page, or follow us on Twitter at @CAecoSoftware. 

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Published: September 28 2009, 02:12 PM | no comments
by Viki Paige

==== Guest Commentary ====

The second half of today’s event was kicked off by Simon Palinkas of the Green IT Group at Tesco. If ever there was a blueprint for CO2 emission reduction Tesco is a good place to start. Palinkas outlined Tesco’s ‘absolute commitment’ to carbon reduction with three ‘strands’ starting simply with leading by example.

Beyond its own four walls, Tesco is also focused on working with partners and suppliers to help drive down the carbon footprint of the products sold within its stores. The final element of its strategy is leading a revolution in green consumption by encouraging its customers to reduce their own carbon footprint, too.

David Metcalfe, CEO of Verdantix also joined the discussion in the second half of the event today.  He talked about how many organisations are still dealing with the basics – finding a way to accurately measure their carbon footprint. In many instances methods are still rudimentary, most commonly, 75 percent focus on calculations from their utility bills, while 63 percent rely on complex spreadsheets. In addition, 44 percent consolidate this data only annually, so it’s nowhere near a real-time view.

The biggest challenges to carbon emission measurement for most are still basic, said Metcalfe. Organisations are wrestling with data collection and accuracy and are a long way from enacting business change and accurate emission forecasting, which will be essential for CRC compliance.

Metcalfe also said the recession has created a short term view of carbon reduction, with many organisations focused heavily on money saving rather than long term energy efficiency. He warned that organisations need by now to have confidence in their data quality now otherwise they will not be in a strong position to audit and measure within CRC deadlines. In his words, “green is a whole business strategy.”

The event’s closing message was simple. The leaders are creating a ‘single version of the carbon truth’ so that they are prepared for long term green business transformation, and with the CRC looming, the masses need to follow suit.

- Geoff Kelly

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Published: September 28 2009, 09:07 AM | no comments
by Viki Paige

==== Guest Commentary ==== 

The RIBA building in central London has provided an imposing backdrop for an equally imposing discussion today (overview here). That being, how can 20,000 UK based organisations manage down their CO2 emissions in line with the Carbon Reduction Commitment? The key message? Organisations need to be working this out right now, rather than waiting for the final registration date next April.

Today’s discussion was kicked off by Terrence Clark, SVP and GM of CA ecoSoftware and a regular contributor to this blog, who alluded to the converging forces of Copenhagen, the CRC and the Obama effect, all adding to the increased pressure on organisations to first capture, then measure, then act upon data about their carbon emissions.

Some 5,000 companies and government organisations in the UK will have to comply with the CRC and a further 15,000 will be required to report against it. In essence, any company with energy bills of over half a million pounds needs to act. The challenge, as Terrence puts it, is that like consumers, we all have the ability to change our habits but we don’t have visibility of the facts.

Areas of a business where there is high level usage of energy, such as IT, only account for about 2% of emissions. These areas are fairly well managed but the other 98% needs to be reined in quickly and accurately.

Harry Morrison, General Manager of The Carbon Trust added to the debate with the point that if the UK is going to make its 80% carbon reduction target by 2050, this means a 2-3% reduction in greenhouse gases per year from today. Massive energy users like power generation companies are already regulated, but significant ‘low energy users’, essentially most other large organisations from NHS Trusts and metropolitan authorities through to retailers and banks, are what the CRC is designed to cover.

Morrison affirmed that these organisations need to be finding a way of monitoring and reporting before the April 2010 compliance deadline. By then they will have needed to establish an accurate picture of their carbon emissions and changed business processes in response. The inclusion of a CRC league table, highlighting each organisation’s absolute reduction in real terms will be quite a motivator!

But the figures already speak volumes. Morrison outlined that an organisation with a footprint of 100,000 tonnes of CO2, typically with a £15m energy bill, will need to purchase £1.2m of carbon credits per year with the addition of a bonus or penalty in the region of £240k.

So the experts are saying act now, why wait. In the next post we will hear about how one leader in carbon reduction, Tesco, is doing it and where the rest of those needing to comply are up to.

- Geoff Kelly, CA

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Published: September 28 2009, 06:50 AM | 2 Comment(s)
by Viki Paige

==== Guest Commentary ====

Today we're blogging live from an event CA is holding in London called "Meeting CO2 reduction targets: Enterprise response to the CRC." Its a discussion involving CA, Tesco, Carbon Trust and Verdantix, talking about how large enterprises and organisations in the UK need to respond to their new CO2 reduction requirements under the impending Carbon Reduction Commitment. We will be updating the blog through the course of the event over the next few hours, with summaries of each speakers' views and a wrap up of the questions posed and discussed. It should provide a useful insight for organisations globally that need to focus on CO2 reduction. Watch this space.

Viki has kindly given over her space here on the Greenability blog for my updates today, and I'm looking forward to sharing the group's insights with you. 

For real-time updates from the event, follow us on Twitter at @CAecoSoftware and @CAUKI.  CA's Chief Sustainability Officer, Steve Boston, is also providing updates at @Sustainable_Guy.

- Geoff Kelly, CA

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Published: September 25 2009, 09:46 AM | no comments
by Duncan Bradford

Last week, our ecoSoftware team had the pleasure of attending the Greentech Media/Groom Energy, “Greening the Supply Chain” event in Boston.  The event was well attended and I would say, very successful.  Importantly, there was plenty of opportunity to network and meet new faces.

As the event unfolded in the morning, we were treated to some interesting and distinguished speakers, with one of my favorites being the opening Keynote by Gary Hirshberg, ‘CE-Yo’ of Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt producer.  Gary has overseen the growth of Stonyfield Farm from a seven cow organic farm to a current $320 million in annual sales.  The leadership and collaboration seen at Stonyfield is inspirational and few would disagree that the company is one of the leaders in pursuing innovative strategies on the unending path to improving their sustainability and overall footprint on the environment.  As Gary said (I’m not sure this was tongue in cheek either), he is looking forwards to the day when you can eat the yogurt pot, thus eliminating waste!

We were also treated to a status update on the upcoming new GHG Protocol standards for Product Lifecycle and Scope 3 GHG accounting and reporting, by Cynthia Cummis from the World Resources Institute.  Cynthia is involved in the project management for these initiatives and it’s clear that these standards are going to be creating a real buzz once their drafts hit the streets in the next month or so.  I had one particular question in my mind -- what is the relationship between the GHG Product Lifecycle standard and the UK PAS 2050 standard, which the UK’s Carbon Trust oversaw?  Cynthia commented that the Carbon Trust is an important stakeholder in the working groups for the new Product Lifecycle standard, which is being aimed as an international standard.  I believe that if these new standards are able to continue to build upon the successful adoption that we have seen with the GHG Protocol, who would bet against these new standards achieving the same level of success…

All in all this was a very valuable event with a lot of interesting insights shared.  I plan to continue to share quick thoughts as I make the rounds on the event circuit over the next few months.  Looking forward to a full schedule!

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