Our view
A regulatory obligation costs money. A management metric makes it. The whole difference lies there.
A starting point
Cutting your carbon footprint by no longer organising or attending events may sound simple. It overlooks what events achieve: economic sustainability, social cohesion, collaboration across an industry.
It also forgets that an event saves travel. Bringing participants together in one place, at one time, spares them a year of journeys.
The point, then, is to keep the value of meeting and exchanging, and to take responsibility for the rest. That path is nothing other than mastering your value chain: informed decisions that make your business more sustainable, more profitable, fairer and less exposed to climate risk.
Our vision
Humanity's survival has always depended on its ability to adapt to its environment. This same ability allows entrepreneurs to seize opportunities, differentiate themselves and grow.
Rather than seeing sustainability as a constraint, it is wiser to treat it as an opportunity: one that lets you align naturally with emerging regulation, without a last-minute scramble.
Traditional value chain analysis is becoming obsolete. A ski resort, for instance, depends heavily on winter snowfall. No financial dashboard says so, and yet that is where the risk lies.
The objective goes beyond measurement to the decisions and actions that follow. That is why the approach must be efficient, building on the data you already hold rather than demanding new data.
Sustainability data should be integrated on the same footing as revenue or margin, and analysed just as regularly, to support sound decision-making.
Converted into a carbon footprint, this data makes informed decisions possible, and alternatives that are both sustainable and cost-effective.
Your benefits
Six documented effects. They only materialise once your figures hold up to third-party scrutiny.
more profit within three to five years, according to Bob Willard's research.
faster sales growth for sustainable products, according to the Harvard Business Review.
of consumers in the US and UK expect brands to support sustainable living.
of the younger generation choose an employer that puts sustainability first.
Savings come into view once emission items are quantified. The same measure often cuts costs and emissions at once.
Younger generations are looking for meaningful work, and 40% of them choose jobs focused on sustainability.
Sales of sustainable products grow 5.6 times faster than those of conventional ones. Provided you can prove what you claim.
Nearly nine in ten consumers in the US and UK expect brands to make a commitment.
Even traditionally polluting industries, such as oil and aviation, are embracing carbon reduction. Wait, and you leave the field to others.
Major investors are gradually withdrawing from polluting industries, as climate and regulatory risks rise.
What actions to take
Six levers. Their effect on your footprint is quantified before you spend a franc.
LED lighting, smart thermostats, energy-efficient equipment. Consumption down by 20 to 30%, depending on the state of your infrastructure.
Cut single-use plastics, compost organic waste, improve sorting. The combined effect is almost always underestimated.
Power your own sites, up to the point where the energy-related footprint disappears altogether.
Public transport, car sharing and electric vehicles, encouraged by tangible incentives such as subsidies and reserved parking. Optimised routes and logistics. The largest item in most of the footprints we measure.
Favour suppliers and providers with sustainable practices: local materials, low-impact catering, low-emission products.
For the emissions that cannot be avoided, and only as a last resort: offset projects such as reforestation or renewable energy schemes.
In practice
Each of these effects assumes you can show your results to a client, an auditor or an investor, and then answer the question that always follows: where does this figure come from?
