Commuting a carbon-loader

Commuting, long considered a drain on time and productivity, now has another drawback – its considerable impact on companies' carbon emissions footprint.

Businesses today have to understand where they are in terms of carbon emissions and plan some quick and easy gains to get on the roadmap, says Puleng director, Steve James.

Local company Puleng Technologies, which provides IT systems management and automation solutions, decided to quantify its emissions and found employee travel made up a sizeable chunk of the total.

“Many of the technologies we provide to customers have energy-saving effects; so we wanted to practise what we preach and see the impacts in our own business,” explains Steve James, director at Puleng. Earlier this year, the company partnered with local consultancy sustainableIT to gain insight into its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions via a greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory.

According to sustainableIT director, Teresa Legg, the first step was a workshop in which the Puleng team was briefed on the parameters and methods of the audit.

“In a sense, it's explaining the whole process of doing the carbon inventory assessment, so we both understand where emissions are coming from, can establish the boundaries of the audit, and also workshop what they want to calculate,” explains Legg.

James notes it's helpful to understand what has a direct impact on emissions, and potential outside influences. “During the positioning workshop, we realised it goes far beyond just the data centre. It's great to understand what is happening globally, as well as from a South African governance perspective, and then relating it back to IT and other activities in the company.

“We embarked on the process to examine, as a small business, what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, and how we can plan going forward.”

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