Environmental sustainability vs Carbon Trading
With the current focus on carbon emission trading and greenhouse gas reporting, unfortunately “green business” has become all about emissions and emission trading for a high proportion of our business population. Less people and especially less businesses are aware of the need to care for other aspects of the environment and many businesses that were considering an environmental management system like ISO 14001 are opting instead for carbon management alone.
The two major problems with the current political approach are that firstly greenhouse gas emissions commonly referred to as “carbon” have overridden all the other environmental impacts and the other is the emphasis on financial accounting associated with these greenhouse gas emissions rather than managing and reducing them.
Climate change caused by atmospheric pollution is a very real problem and we must reduce our greenhouse emissions and do so urgently, but this is not the only environmental impact that should be considered. There is a real danger of ignoring other environmental issues as we concentrate on one thing alone.
The fact is that a simple and well planned energy management and especially an ISO 14001 environmental management system helps a business to change behaviour, reduce emissions and save money. This is a far better option than merely paying to pollute with carbon offsets. Apart from the cost, paying to pollute fails to produce any behavioural change within an organisation.
Save Money with Simple and Effective Management SystemsJean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.
