Last week Green Element helped Grant Thornton UK LLP make a momentous pledge to the environment by signing a commitment to set science-based targets through the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Leading business and financial adviser Grant Thornton UK places equal importance on its environmental and sustainability conduct as on its financial performance. By signing up to set a science-based target, the firm has taken the natural next step four years after it first attained certification to international standard ISO 14001 for its UK-wide Environmental Management System (EMS). This is a bold move since science-based targets require far steeper reductions in greenhouse gas emissions than any of our clients have achieved so far through energy-savings strategies alone, no matter how committed to sustainability many of them are.
Grant Thornton worked really hard to use its EMS to save 2,800 tonnes of carbon emissions between 2015 and 2017, through buildings and transport energy savings and increased sustainable business practices. Now it’s signed up to further slashing those emissions by 2020-50. What this shows is a leading commitment to do everything within its power to reduce the indisputable threat of catastrophic climate change, necessitating a move away from fossil fuels to 100% bona fide renewable energy combined with yet greater reductions in unsustainable forms of business travel.
To date, 454 organisations have committed to set science-based targets through the SBTi, which means they are dedicated to ensuring they play their part in the decarbonisation required to keep the global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial temperatures, as described in the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5) and committed to by 195 countries at the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Science-based targets provide companies with a clearly defined pathway to future-proof growth by specifying how much and how quickly they need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The Science Based Targets initiative champions science-based target setting as a powerful way of boosting companies’ competitive advantage in the transition to the low-carbon economy. It’s a collaboration between the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).
We, at Green Element, believe in this movement that encourages all of us to try to prevent irreversible global warming. Congratulations to Grant Thornton UK! Hopefully this will encourage other organisations to follow suite.
If you sign a commitment to set science-based targets by 31 August and set the targets by 31 December 2018, the SBTi will validate your target for free.
After that date there is a fee. If you’d like help or advice on SBTs or energy- or carbon-saving strategies, ISO 14001 or 50001, please contact us!