How can Businesses reduce their environmental footprint?

As organizers of EcoPrint, our primary goal is to promote sustainability in the print industry and reduce environmental footprints. However, businesses may find this task overwhelming.

To address this, we interviewed Michael Has, a sustainability expert with a PhD in Physical Biochemistry from Regensburg University (Germany). As of 1998 Has is distinguished University Professor at University of Grenoble and Partner at Monopteros GmbH, a management consultancy that emphasizes ecological and economic sustainability. He has extensive knowledge and experience in sustainability and has intensively published on the topic in trade journals and scientific magazines.

As the matter requires Has takes an holistic approach to examining the relationship between human economic activity, sustainability-related responsibility, and economic success, and applies this approach to the businesses he works with. Coming out of a senior management career and as a consultant he supports companies in the generation of their non-financial report (NFR) and, in that context, to gather and calculate the respective KPIs among which the estimation of risks and CO2 Footprints are crucial.

For the latter Has suggests that businesses begin by understanding their emissions, material consumption and waste pathways also in order to reduce the energy-related impact of products. The respective standards, especially the Green House Gas Protocol provide tool for this, but applying them requires significant expertise. In industrial value chains sooner or later companies are legally or by their own customers required to annually report emissions and measures to reduce them. For that businesses implement an annual NFR to develop reduction strategies. Has advises against greenwashing to make the environmental impact appear smaller, instead recommending that businesses focus on reducing consumption in own premises and supply chains e.g. through reuse and recycling. 

"It's required to assess emissions using general, not sector-specific, questionnaires and local know how, document results and activities transparently using clearly formulated assumptions and estimated values" he says. 

Although determining a company's carbon footprint goes along with effort and costs, Has notes that there are also costs associated with emissions levies, which currently stand at around 100€ per tonne of CO2. According to Has, these prices are likely to increase in the future, with organizations such as German Federal Ministry for Development considering CO2 prices of 180€ per tonne CO2 equivalents to be reasonable. In addition, banks are forced to consider sustainability-related risks when estimating the value of companies or interest rates in case of investments.  Hence it is in the best interest for companies to assess their own sustainability-related impact including all related footprints. The requirement to generate Non-Financial Reports will add to the pressure on industry and consumers. Has emphasizes that the best way for businesses to protect themselves from these costs is to reduce sustainability-related impacts, especially risks and emissions within their own consumption and supply chains, which includes reusing and recycling materials.

One thing is clear, according to Michael Has: businesses of all sizes must reduce emissions by 3-5% annually to achieve climate goals.

Michael Has will be running a Sustainability Learning Workshop in the on 6th June at EcoPrint Summit, Geneva. The title of his workshop is ‘How to Assess and Reduce CO2 Footprints in Businesses in the context of Non Financial Reporting’. To find out more please click here.

For more information on Dr Michael Has click here.