All strategies that reduce climate change risk involve either reducing greenhouse gas emissions, enhancing the ability of ecosystems to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, or reducing the vulnerability of your assets to any climate change that does occur. It is now time to identify and put into action plans to reduce emissions from your business. The following are general criteria you should consider in selecting the most effective strategies and projects for reduction:
2. Focus on strategies that are the most cost-effective, with short pay-back periods - recognising that once the "low hanging fruit" are picked, the remaining options may have longer pay-back periods, or may never pay for themselves through energy savings (and hence must be justfied in other ways).
3. Focus on strategies that require only resources (cost, time, expertise) your company is prepared and able to allocate without adversely affecting your core business.
4. Focus on strategies that place reasonable demands on any asset management programme under which they will operate, including repair, replacement and new capital investment cycles.
With these quite broad criteria in mind, it is time to begin identification and selection of strategies to reduce emissions. A database is being developed to guide the process of identifying strategies of reduction targeting the particular energy and material uses specific to your company, with estimates of cost effectiveness, resources required and percent carbon emissions reduction.
