With the geopolitical and national shift in enthusiasm for Net Zero we need to start having honest conversations about what hitting Net Zero really means, whether it’s understood, achievable and even desirable. Let’s start at the beginning.
Over the last 5 years helping companies achieve Net Zero across their workplaces and supply chain has been a key area of professional focus. In that time there are four key concerns that keep getting raised.
It’s Confusing
Here’s an honest truth that no one wants to say too loudly – the whole Net Zero thing is confusing. Not slightly or mildly – very. Anyone who says differently is either lying or delusional, as the phrase goes.
The way discussions go, especially with large consultancies selling you their services, is that in order to achieve Net Zero you’ll need to walk an very complicated path, that also happens to be lengthy and costly. This path involves so many individually involved elements that the plan which develops confuses the board, management, staff and investors alike. Between CSR, Net Zero 2050, SECR, ESOS, CRP, the GHG Protocol, BSI PAS 2060, ISO 14001, mandatory reporting and everything else not named here that can be drawn in there’s almost too much to keep track of let alone actually understand.
How to align these to larger Science Based Targets, engage in the Circular Economy, meet ESG expectations and still run a business profitably without a notable OpEx and resource drain into something that isn’t driving your core business is a valid and very real concern. So much so that the already denuded economic and industrial landscape we’re seeing in the UK appears to be (it is) under further threat of strain and burden from pursuing Net Zero ambitions.
It’s Pure Cost
As we’ve touched on it’s a cost – there’s no money in it. Net Zero is seen as an unwanted cost, an operational burden, for no tangible benefit. Because of this most companies in the 50-to-a-few-hundred-million revenue bracket don’t have a Net Zero Director or even a paid Sustainability Team. They’re doing the minimum to tick-the-box and move on, but that minimum is not nothing in terms of cost to the business in a multitude of ways.
Jut in people alone, you’re going to either need consultants to run the Net Zero programme and drive your strategic plans forward, you’re going to skill up internal staff or you’re going for some hybrid version of the two. In any case trained staff focused on your core business are now distracted on something else and those expensive consultants are drawing their ongoing fees for months, likely years. Add to this disruption to staff not directly involved; office and plant managers, accounts staff, the procurement team, logistics and distribution, facilities management, IT, yes even legal and HR – the indirect costs grow too.
Did I mention software, subscriptions and licencing for compliance and disclosure platforms for you to publish your data and outcomes on, with external auditors if you’d like them. Also, don’t forget purchasing those off-sets and allowances to make up the shortfall on your decarbonisation goals.
It’s Meaningless Rhetoric
While a lack of Board level commitment to a full force Net Zero programme is usually commercially driven – sometimes it’s simply because not everyone is even convinced Net Zero is achievable or desirable. A few minutes looking at the news or social media and it’s easy to come across both a) statements about Net Zero the importance of Net Zero that are vague and lacking in substance – there’s no actionable information, and b) anti Net Zero statements that conclude pursuing it is destroying our economies and quality of life.
It’s no wonder. Loose phrases such how Net Zero will “bring the benefits of carbon and energy reporting to more businesses” or that it will help “avert the worst impacts of climate change and preserve a liveable planet” are in themselves meaningless. But to get meaning injected in there requires a lot more time and effort in what’s already seen as a pure cost and complicated endeavour.
And of course, there are a growing number of public figures, powerful organisations and private individuals who are saying the whole thing is a scam, with no real science or evidence to prove that man-made climate change is actually a thing, negating the need for Net Zero at all.
It’s Unachievable
As every organisation that starts excitedly down the Net Zero path will discover, it’s hard work making meaningful progress after the initial flush of success once say Scope 1 and 2 is achieved. I talk about decarbonising the Workplace and Supply Chain as two separate domains for a reason. Once you hit the Supply Chain part, Scope 3 in other words, things get more out of your control, but as to why is a whole other article.
Even ‘decarbonisation’, the removal of CO2 from a company’s activities, is a misnomer. There are 7 greenhouse gases but they’re reported as CO2, leading to erroneous carbon accounting as mentioned in my article on tree planting, there’s no direct removal needed – even though they cause greater global warming, harm biodiversity and the environment more than CO2. The impact is that you can never reach true Zero emissions unless you close your company down and cease operations permanently, not just through activities and supply chain, but due to carbon accounting boundaries.
The Good News…!
There are ways to address all of the points above;
- The right approach will clarify the confusion that might exist but which does not need to be a feature of the strategy you put in place the process and practice you enact to deliver it.
- The Net Zero journey does not need to be pure cost, there’s investment needed but it can deliver measurable operational and financial value while also transforming supplier, client and investor relations over the short and long term.
- The right strategic change plan and operational approach removes all meaningless rhetoric. As António Guterres said “Government or private sector commitments to net-zero cannot be a mere public relations exercise.” and done well it won’t be.
- The sense that 100% zero emissions is unachievable is put into a correct context with sensible milestones against an effective plan, meaning hitting emissions reduction of “45% by 2030” and “net zero by 2050” is fully achievable.
When you embark on a pragmatic strategic change programme – centred around Net Zero, based on sensible goals and efficient and effective practices that don’t have to derail your core business activities – Net Zero is possible.
Mark.
