BUSINESS CASE FOR CHANGE

Climate Change (including global warming) is recognised as a threat to human welfare by scientists, economists, governments, business leaders and the general public.

However, for individual organisations, the prime motivation for taking action to reduce environmental and climate change impacts is for commercial reasons. In essence, actions must reflect positively on the bottom line, either now or in the future.

Fundamentally, any initiative must benefit the organisation by reducing costs, protecting revenue, increasing income, improving capital investment, and managing risk.

The commercial environment is changing with a series of pressures and drivers that will encourage actions which provide commercial benefits and contribute to a lower environmental impact.

PRESSURES AND DRIVERS >> ACTIONS >> BENEFITS

PRESSURES AND DRIVERS >> ACTIONS >> BENEFITS

Organisations need to adapt to this changing environment in order to survive and thrive in a carbon constrained economy by taking some or all of the following:

• Improving energy and resource efficiency;
• Developing products and services that appeal to the discerning ‘green’ consumer;
• Obtaining environmental certification for processes, products, or services;
• Meeting governmental procurement requirements (e.g. Govt3);
• Voluntary disclosure of environmental performance;
• Driving change back up their supply chain;
• Anticipating and adapting to regulatory changes;
• Developing and utilising clean technologies; and
• Appealing to and retaining, high quality staff. 

CAUTION!  When taking action, organisations need to be aware of the perils of green-washing.  Green-washing is misleading consumers by making irrelevant or false claims on the environment-related characteristics of a product or service, which can result in damaging publicity or punitive action.  CarbonGroup can help you avoid these dangers. 

PRESSURES AND DRIVERS >> ACTIONS 

>> BENEFITS

Taking meaningful action will generate various benefits for the individual organisations which contribute to competitive advantage, as well as contributing to improved outcomes for the environment. In general, the benefits are:

• Reduced operational costs;
• Protection of income from retention of existing customer;
• Increased income from attracting new customers;
• Achieve early mover advantage;
• Increased profitability;
• Improved access to capital;
• Enhanced company brand value and reputation;
• Reduced risk from regulatory change;
• Recruit and retain high quality staff;
• Minimise various environmental impacts; and
• Contribute to climate change mitigation.