East Lothan Carbon Management Plan - Case Study Example

East Lothan carbon management plan Name Institution East Lothan carbon management plan. Forward from Michael Smith the chef executive. East Lothan signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian climate change declaration in 2008. For commitment purposes, the council agreed to engage in a carbon management programme. The carbon management programme is organized by the carbon trust. This initiative is rewarding to East Lothan. The company commits itself to regulate carbon emissions through the carbon management plan. Carbon management programme will be based on the company’s role of controlling carbon emissions to make a difference. The end result is the reduction of carbon emission (MacKenzie 2004). Reducing carbon emissions to the atmosphere is a relevant step in the fight against climate change. This should be a key priority for companies operating in Australia. The Australian government identified the private sector as a significant sector contributing to reduction of carbon emission. This is in line with the government’s commitment to the Kyoto commitments. Carbon management assists companies by saving a substantial amount of money on energy. Carbon emission management by companies contributes to environmental management initiatives to fight climate change (Gössling 2011). East Lothan was selected as the programme to be able to save costs and contribute to climate change strategies. The carbon management strategies will ensure that East Lothan Company reduces carbon emissions into the air by 20%. The sources of these emissions are the company’s buildings and stationary sources. The company projects to achieve this target by the year 2014. This carbon emission strategy will save the company between 3 million pounds to four million pounds (MacKenzie 2004). Introduction East Lothan signed an Australian climate change declaration in early 2007 to have mitigation measures against global warming. The company plans to contribute to the society by helping in tackling environmental problems that the Australian society faces. As part of the company’s strategic environmental management, the company intends to prioritize the carbon management strategy. This will contribute to the global climate change strategy. The water and energy strategy 2005 significantly contributed to reducing carbon emission and consequently produced financial savings. The company has taken part in a number of forums to discuss carbon management. The company organized carbon management workshops that were attended by various stakeholders. The workshops discussed the strategic issue of carbon management. During these workshops the company learned from experts the best methods of reducing carbon emissions. The company has a carbon emissions management board set up to advise the company on carbon saving ideas. Key drivers for carbon management plan The drivers for the carbon management programme are internal policy, legislative drivers, financial drivers and reputational drivers. East Lothan Company identifies core values that drove the company to plan for carbon emission management. The foremost value is that of responsibility. The company is obliged to contribute to sustainable development and environmental well being. The company identifies environmental and financial enablers for the carbon management plan. A key priority for action is to reduce the carbon foot print and its impacts on the environment. The company is required by legislation to adopt a carbon management strategy as part of a measure to conform to the management of climate change. The energy markets are volatile. The cost of energy utilities is a key driver for the company to engage in carbon management. Regulation drivers relate to the benchmarks in the industry. The benchmarks relate directly to the amount of carbon a company emits into the atmosphere (Field and Raupach 2004).The company noble objective is a key driver for it to undertake carbon management strategy. The company feels obliged to take part in initiatives such as carbon emission reduction to contribute to the global sustainable environment activities. East Lothan recognizes the vital contribution of climate change strategies in delivering quality goods and services to the Australian population. The company aims at contributing to the Australian government strategy of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The company intends to assess opportunities and risks that climate change brings to the business. The company seeks to reduce green house emissions through green house gas measurement techniques. It will achieve this by looking at carbon management as a transformation challenge. On contrary, other companies look at carbon management as a corporate social responsibility issue. The company keeps on strengthening its governance management structure as a prerequisite for transformational change. The company has hired a chief sustainability officer who is in charge of quantifying risks and value. In addition, the chief sustainability officer coordinates and engages stakeholders in all the carbon management initiatives that the company engages in. The other notable carbon management strategy for the company is a 2020 strategy for carbon management. This strategy provides for a transformation vision, because regulations by then will be tightened (Posner 2008). It aims to achieve this by consulting widely with climate sustainability firms like Ernst Young. These companies provide strategic input for East Lothan. The company has adopted cross functional changes in order to achieve carbon emission goals. These changes are initiated across the departments of energy, operations and finance. The cross functional changes are to reduce carbon emissions through simultaneous projects that capture granular energy and fuel data. The departments intend to undertake financial analysis of projects to assess potential risks. The company plans to engage the services of consultants CH3M HILL, Scott Wilson and finally ASP energy. These consultants have vast expertise and experience in projects related energy services and carbon energy consultancy services. East Lothan plans to use integrated carbon management systems to reduce carbon emission. The systems aid in compiling accurate, complete and timely data on fuel and energy consumption (Spathelf 2009). The integrated carbon management systems require carbon software and metering systems to track energy consumption. Additionally, the carbon management systems track refrigerant leakage to reduce carbon emissions at the asset level. The company’s low carbon vision East Lothan Company has a vision of reducing carbon emission activities in order to be ahead of other companies in Australia. The company plans to play a role in partnering with communities to implement carbon emission plans. Strategic themes East Lothan endeavors to incorporate strategic objectives in its plans. This is for the purposes of coordinating its existing carbon management proposals. The company intends to build a carbon management structure to oversee projects in order to reduce carbon emissions. The activities of the company will be benchmarked against other companies. This will provide an opportunity for the company to learn from noble activities of other companies. The company intends to utilize the services of its chief sustainability officer. The chief sustainability officer will assist in the implementation of a policy to reduce carbon emissions. The chief sustainability officer will oversee the implementation of the companies wide ranging actions on reducing carbon emission (Posner 2008). The company plans to offer a communication plan to staff. This plan engages staff in raising awareness on carbon emission management. It also creates awareness on systems for providing feedback on energy consumption in the company. An email address (eastlothan@gmail.com) will be used to allow stakeholders to suggest additional ways of reducing carbon emission. The company further plans to use energy metering and monitoring for targeting equipments that are sources of energy waste. Emissions baseline and projections The company’s carbon emission projections will cover a number of operational aspects. The operational aspects are properties that the company owns. The properties include offices, production plants and community centers. The scope of the company’s emission projects cover housing and the company’s transport facilities. Additionally the scope includes all aspects of external lighting that encompasses street lighting and stair lighting. The company chose the year 2012-2013 as the year to carry a baseline exercise. The property services provided data on the company’s buildings and water. Operation services will provide data on street lighting, fleet and waste management. Housing services will provide data relating to the company’s housing. The data will be used to manage carbon emission because buildings produce 25% of the total carbon emissions which stands at 42500 tones of CO. The company intends to divert 3500 tones at a recycling rate of 34%.The company plans to achieve a 40% waste recycling as it is reflected in its 2012 waste management strategy. The company intends to reduce street lighting and the amount of transport emissions from 6% to 4 %in the 2013. Further, the company aims at rationalizing the amount of buildings that perform poorly in energy efficiency. Carbon management projects One of the significant projects to be used for carbon emission reduction is the water and energy project. The project helps to incorporate energy awareness in the company’s induction process. In addition, the project will provide energy awareness information through out the company. The company has numerous planned projects. The planned projects will contribute to energy savings as well as financial savings. The projects are a fuel management system; the corporate temperature strategy and energy from waste processing plant. The company further intends to provide a bio diesel mix for its fleet of vehicles. Carbon management financing. East Lothan requires one to two million pounds investments for its energy management programme. The company plans to finance the carbon management plan though a ten year capital programme that was initiated in early 2012. The capital programme is long term in nature, hence providing a degree of flexibility in funding (Blackburn 2007). The existing capital programmes will be used to carbon reducing technology at no extra cost. The company plans to fund the carbon management programme through a spend to save budget, its capital programme and through prudential borrowing. Actions to embed in East Lothan’s carbon management East Lothan’s has prepared climate change strategy which was prepared by its consultants. The climate change strategy includes, the carbon monoxide saving strategies. This strategy is embedded in its corporate plan. The carbon management team and the board were established to make contribute to the corporate operational plan. The move incorporates the existing water and energy strategies. The company plans to combine the water and energy team with the management team to avoid duplication. Additionally the combination is bound to increase efficiency. The key duty of the management team is to review and monitor key initiatives of the carbon management programme. The energy and water working groups established energy wardens. Energy wardens are the company’s members of staff. The energy wardens have been trained to understand the great responsibility added to their existing jobs. Their performance will be reviewed on a monthly basis to monitor their contribution to the carbon management programme. Data management to measure benefits of the programme. The company plans to start data management by the establishment of a carbon baseline.There has been detailed work on capturing data relating to transport mileage. The company plans to hire a carbon management officer to assist in assessment of data. The officer will significantly assist in assessing the currently gathered data and inform the management team on the systems and processes to be used transmit information to members of staff. Communication and training to raise awareness. East Lothan plans to undertake massive training of staff on issues relating to energy. The training is included in the company’s communication strategy. The company plans to undertake surveys intended to find out staff attitudes on the carbon management plan. The carbon management officer will review this issue for it to be integrated in the staff induction process. The carbon management officer will review the issue in consultation with the human resource department. The communication strategy further advocates for a programme to raise awareness to members of the neighboring communities on carbon management. Programme management East Lothan recognizes the requirement for sound governance of the carbon management programme. Its governance structures incorporate senior level partnerships to assist in carbon reduction targets. The strategic ownership of the carbon reduction plan rests with the management team. The team is further vested with the responsibility of governing the carbon management plan. The management team is responsible for the plans activities to ensure that the programme achieves its objectives. It will oversee the programme activities to ensure that, the carbon reduction project delivers. The management team will ensure coherence and coordination in the programme. The team is responsible for the overall planned activities for the programme, so that barriers to the programme are eliminated. The role of carbon management core team The carbon management core team is a team of high ranking officials from East Lothan Company. The carbon management core team is given the responsibility to ensure key stakeholders across the company are well represented. This is during the process of developing the original carbon management plan. It is made up of the project leader, deputy project leader, sponsors and project advisers. A full time programme manager will be appointed to play the roles of the project leader. The duty project leader becomes his/ her assistant manager. He/ she will perform the roles of the project leader in the absence of the programme manager. Ongoing stake holder management Stake holders are individuals within or outside to East Lothan. Stake holders are affected directly by the implementation of the carbon management programme. The programme will engage with the stakeholders through board meetings. Other stakeholders will be engaged through the core team. The core team will be communicated to through internal communications workshops and departmental communications. Comprehensive internal communications will use available media to pass information meant for stake holders. The existing committee will be utilized to spread information about the carbon management programme at all levels. Behavioral change projects will be introduced and communicated to new staff on the programme. Reviewing annual progress The programme manager is responsible for reviewing the annual progress on yearly basis. His duties will encompass monitoring the progress of the programme against the implementation plan. The programme manager undertakes a cost-benefit analysis to give recommendations on the outcomes of the carbon management programme.His analysis covers the financial savings accrued to the carbon management programme. His analysis contributes towards sector level reduction targets. Furthermore His analysis explains the qualitative gains to the surrounding community. The reviews provide timely updates to the carbon management plan. The update will provide an analysis of the emerging opportunities to achieve carbon reduction. References Posner ,2008, Intergovernmental management for the twenty-first. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, Gössling, S, 2011.Carbon management in tourism: mitigating the impacts on climate change, New York: Routledge. Field, C, Raupach M, 2004, The global carbon cycle: integrating humans, climate, and the natural world. Washington Dc: Island press. Blackburn, W, 2007, The sustainability handbook: "the complete management guide. New York: Vintage books. Spathelf, P, 2009, Sustainable forest management in a changing world: a European perspective. London: Springer. Read More