You don’t need to be. Use these five steps for carbon performance made simple. Measuring and managing your company’s carbon footprint is a business best practice that is quickly becoming a requirement in today’s competitive marketplace.

Not only do you get to showcase your environmental stewardship and corporate social responsibility, but you also prepare for pending mandates and proposed cap and trade programs. Establishing your carbon footprint can help you reduce risk and potentially even help you ride out the recession. In fact, a new report from A.T. Kearny, Green Winners: the performance of sustainability-focused companies during the economic crisis, shows that companies with established and recognized sustainability practices are outperforming their peers that are not committed to sustainability during the current economic crisis.

So why isn’t everyone doing it? Why haven’t you done it yet?

Perhaps it’s because the carbon management world looks confusing—maybe even a little intimidating. It’s probably outside the core competency of your organization. You know it needs to be done, but how do you go about it?

What the C-Suite and senior management need to know are the basics of carbon performance. When you’re familiar with the ABCs, you can make informed decisions and lead your organization down the right paths.

It’s a step-by-step process

Just as it has with its ISO 9000 quality management family of standards, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed a comprehensive, usable, international standard for carbon management under its 14000 environmental management family: the ISO 14064 series (the author’s organization, the Canadian Standards Association, acted as World Secretariat for the development of ISO 14064).

ISO 14064-1 Part 1 Specification with Guidance at the Organizational Level for Quantification and Reporting of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Removals provides principles and requirements for quantifying and reporting an organization’s carbon footprint. This standard breaks the process down into five steps:

  1. Setting Organizational Parameters and Boundaries
  2. Measuring GHG Activity
  3. Choosing Methodologies
  4. Reporting
  5. Verification

* extract from article by Dr michel Girard, Director Canadian Standards Association. CSA is a strategic partner of CMSE