Many of us have found ourselves, several times over the last two years wishing we had a carbon accountant at our disposal. This was a universal thought. It didn't matter if we were at a chip maker, in financial services, government departments, local government or the oil and gas business or a software maker or big or small Pharma, or even the Soup Company or local florist or dentist.

But we need to know we are getting the right - and the internationally recognized training in carbon management.  Well we need to be sure that our training is in an area fully recognized all over the world – thus it has to be training in the International Standards Organisation (ISO) Green House Gas (GHG) systems - ISO 14064.

On behalf of the ISO, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) have lead the development of ISO 14064 – a series of international standards dealing with carbon quantification, GHG reduction projects and verification / validation of GHG claims made by businesses.

Our ISO/CSA14064 training provides substantial and robust GHG training which equips our delegates with the tools needed to deal with GHG issues.  Our students come from DEFRA, Carbon Trust, DECC, international energy firms, International Banking and Investment houses and engineering, energy, environmental and engineering consultancies.

April 2010, the UK Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) legislation requires over 5,000 organisations and companies to fully disclose their energy use, and requires another 15,000 to begin collecting baseline data. This means these organisations will have to focus even more on managing and reducing their energy usage. At launch it is has been estimated that this market will be worth £750m in the UK. This new market will need to be serviced by new and existing companies and consultancies focused on calculating and reducing energy output. Carbon consultancies will become very busy servicing this new market, however evidence from the Carbon Show held in London October 2009 suggest there is currently a shortage of qualified and experienced professionals.

Carbon recruitment agencies were interested in acquiring details of trained professionals at the ISO 14064 training stand at the Carbon Show. The recruitment agencies outlined  that only 1 in 4 open vacancies are currently being filled with candidates trained in carbon measurement , reduction and verification skills. The carbon recruitment agencies are struggling to fill these positions, this situation will be exacerbated by the introduction of the CRC legislation. They expect that the number of open vacancies will increase over the next 5 - 7 years unless the gap can be filled by trained professionals.

Companies who have an electricity expenditure over £500K per annum will require carbon measurement to be carried out annually and will create a huge need for trained and competent professionals. The employment opportunity for these individuals will be immense.

COP 15 has been debated in a series of negotiations over the last two years to try to replace Kyoto which runs out on 31 /12/2012.   However there are always difficulties with dealing with crises which do not seem immediately threatening such as Global Warming.   Some countries say they will not expend too much effort as other countries are not obliged to comply with the rules.  Some argue that China and USA (now responsible for 40% of current GHG ) should do more.  The table shows how the West has actually put up into the atmosphere 83.7% of the GHG that’s up there causing us to effectively choke on our own waste.  Hence China, India and Brazil feel that their national development is to be curtailed because the West over consumed the atmosphere as a waste site for their industry.  The concept at issue is one of “inter-generational equity”  The West got rich from 1800 to 1900 whilst the rest just provided slaves and raw materials – that’s the feeling in the “non-West” .

Now also we have the US saying it is not fair that US should cut back under Kyoto but China, India and Brazil are allowed emit without restriction.  Copenhagen will try to include China, India and Brazil as well as the US.  GW Bush pulled the US out of Kyoto for this reason.  Interestingly Bill Clinton and Al Gore signed up to Kyoto without Senate ratification as they knew the Senate would knock it down and they were a little “too cute” in signing it – knowing it would never pass into US law.

But if COP 15 is a success we will have  a real deal where all emitters will agree to and be bound by cuts in GHG output.  If such cuts can prevent serious global warming is unknown.  There are concerns for instance that the perma-frost in Siberia (and Canada) could thaw out and release millions of tonnes of bound methane leading to a potential surface global temperature rise of up to 8, 9 or 10 degrees Celsius.  Such an event would mean certain mass extinction of many species on Earth – of these homo sapiens would probably become extinct early in this mass extinction phase.   

There are so many issues at play here it is hard to know where to start !  But game theory has a part to play (pardon the pun [game-play])

The prisoners dilemma, in which two suspects are held in different rooms for questioning – the interrogator of Prisoner 1 says “ Prisoner 2 is talking like a canary – and your only way out is to implicate him”   The other interrogator says the same to the other prisoner – eventually they both give each other away based on fear and the feeling that they do not want to be shafted by the other guy.  But in fact they are both shafted, this is the game that was played at Kyoto and now again at COP 15.  It is not yet realised how severe global warming will impact out civilisation.  We need to cut GHG by 80% which means no travel to foreign climes unless required by national security reasons.  Aviation will dwindle to a pale shadow of itself within ten years, the EU are to include aviation in the ETS next year – this will surely spell the end for cheap air fares.

Another aspect of management and husbandry at play is the fact that the global commons (the atmosphere) is owned by no-one and therefore no one feels responsible for its upkeep. The UNFCCC flexible mechanisms tried to deal with this to some extent – imperfectly I know – but they did try.  By putting a price on carbon we can draw the entrepreneurial spirits into Environmental protection, because there is a dollar in it. We know that entrepreneurs make things happen quickly – thus it is crucial to get them involved – in spite of the protests of the deep green ecologists – we need people of action to get things done.  The most important of which is saving our species.

We should not either become too despondent – today thousands of people die or meet the end of their world – so why should we here in the cosseted and well fed West worry about the end of the world? 

Well, we should worry that we will have grandchildren and we need a planet for them – we need to act today to give them a hope of a future.  To avoid duplicity and cheating – we have ISO 14064 – a most pure and decent way to measure our GHG emissions and GHG reductions, which can be shown to our relatives in Russia, China, India, Brazil and South East Asia, along with our Western colleagues we can now be certain of what we are talking about – this is a first – up to now we were guessing.

According to Suzanne Kiraly, president of CSA Standards, as things stand, the US will require 10,000 facilities to begin reporting carbon emissions in 2010. However when legislators do pass carbon verification or management legislation, this requirement is set to increase dramatically.The CSA has played a key role in setting common standards, and developing policy internationally. The CSA has also recently been very active in the Carribean, working with the Cariri (Caribbean Industrial Research Institute), holding ISO14064 training workshops and a recent seminar at Trinidad and Tobago.

Here at Carbon Action we can see the same scenario playing out as legislators in Europe move towards developing requirements and standards to enable organisations to measure and manage their carbon footprint.

One possibility mentioned in Europe is the introduction of ‘carbon tariffs’ on imports to the EU. The EU emission trading scheme requires organisations to account for each tonne of CO2 emitted. The ETS leads to rising production costs for firms who are obliged to comply - this is a good thing where all firms face the same obligations. It is not so good if it can introduce competitive issues where European companies are in competition with companies from areas which do not operate emission trading or environmental protection measures.

Some argue that in order to protect European companies from growing and what is perceived as unfair competitive pressure, additional taxation (or border tariffs) of goods from countries that have no climate protection measures should be introduced.

If the EU imposes carbon taxes on products from developing countries for environmental reasons, governments in other countries may introduce similar measures. This is one possible scenario.  We will return to this subject over the next few weeks with other possible outcomes to a failure at Copenhagen; however we believe a successor to Kyoto will emerge if not in December – then shortly afterwards, as not taking action is not really an option for us.

On a practical level regarding emission controls and carbon trading initiatives, we cannot yet align the EU ETS with similar systems in other countries - one tool to help with this is the global ISO 14064 standard - at least we can then be sure that we are all quantifying carbon using the same yardstick or benchmark. The beauty and applicability of ISO 14064 is that it is program or regime neutral and can be used to manage emissions in any jurisdiction. It is a global solution for a global issue. 

In its current state, cap-and-trade schemes to reduce emissions are said to be far from being fair and effective; a major improvement would include establishing a Central Climate Bank to register and supervise the transfer of emissions credits using ISO 14064 as the transaction assurance tool . This bank would also ensure that emissions trading did not run counter to the goal of remaining within an agreed global carbon budget, for example via the complete sale of unused emissions credits by individual developing countries at the beginning of the contract period.

In order to achieve this, the Central Climate Bank must have the power to do its job. This power can only come from the UN via the framework convention on climate change.

Many progressive companies are implementing carbon management and are prepared for the change that is inevitable. It’s also clear that many firms to date are not actively reducing carbon emissions, and so therefore have not been recruiting or developing individuals in-house or contracting consultants. One thing is for sure- whatever about the social responsibility aspect of this- it is inevitable that companies will soon be compelled by legislative requirement to manage their carbon footprint. From a societal perspective, it is to be sincerely hoped that agreement will be reached at COP15.   

In the UK market where the CRC becomes law in April 2010, some 8000 firms are registered as high energy users and shall be compelled to reduce their emissions.  Today many of these organisations are not in a position to handle the CRC challenge robustly – in fact some research indicates up to 60% of firms may not yet be fully aware of their obligations under CRC.  So when these factors change, what resources are available?

CRC firms will need to be able to quantify and report their emissions annually – with ISO 14064 they be assured and more importantly they can assure the Environment Agency that their footprint and annual reports are robust and verifiable. As only 20% of CRC will be audited, a firm using ISO14064 or the Carbon Trust Standards can expect to avoid an audit as they will have demonstrated best practice.  As the Carbon Footprint Forum has stated on the growth of online transactions and data exchange, data warehouses serving financial transactions, government and NHS issues have doubled in energy requirements and emissions since 2000. Banks, NHS, Revenue, the aviation and travel sectors and other organisations dealing with mass markets use massive amounts of energy and emit very significant GHGs, and will face significant financial liabilities under the CRC.  

In the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), uncertainty exists around the actual outcomes of COP15. A failure at Copenhagen may, according to some commentators, lead to a reduced use of CDM-type projects-this would be a backwards step as offsetting does reduce global emissions.  In order to reinforce and make CDM–type initiatives more acceptable globally, it would enhance the carbon markets if everyone played on a level played field.

GHG emissions and reductions have today become a commodity with a clear need for an infrastructure to support carbon initiatives. An industry base of competent, credible GHG verifiers and GHG quantifiers is required to support emerging market mechanisms.

There is a major shortage of qualified carbon verifiers in the market, as the following survey highlights indicate:

• 80% said not enough professionals in this area
• 80% said likely Enron-type scandal could emerge
• 80% said area will be professionalized in next few years

This shortage of skilled and competent professionals is going to magnify in the medium term. The large consultancies DNV, SGS, KPMG, PWC, Ernst & Young, WYG, Mott MacDonald and many others are taking an interest in this area. As demand balloons, employment opportunities are likely to materialise within these organisations and within their larger client companies.  Competent individuals would also be able to verify and provide consultancy services of their own accord. 

So what is the process to demonstrate competence in this new field? Well, high quality training is available to help fill this skills gap in the main GHG sectors of:

• GHG Inventories
• GHG Projects
• GHG Validation and Verification

If an individual obtains the necessary grade in ISO 16064 exams, they are provided with a Certificate of Distinction, which permits them to be considered as having the necessary knowledge to carry out Quantification, Projects or Verification Programme for any organisation in any location, in any jurisdiction in any industry sector, globally. This is the benefit of the ISO 14064 standard.

In addition GHG professionals having gone through a rigorous training program can apply for a Personal Certification qualification – recently developed by the Canadian Standards Association and approved by the American National Standards Association (ANSI).  This is facilitated in Europe by Carbon Action.

Carbon Action trains carbon specialists to prepare them for professional work and to take Personal Certification Programs.

Also Thursday 15th October was Blog Action Day 09 (BAD09) - which reached at least 17 million people.

At least three major world governments participated in this year’s blog event - which was all about global warming and climate change. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown posted the first Blog Action Day entry in Britain and was followed by Foreign Minister David Milliband and many others from the UK stationed around the world. The governing party of Spain hosted a bloggers event focused on climate change and transformed their website for the day to promote Blog Action Day. And late in the day, President Barack Obama’s White House blog joined in become part of the global movement of bloggers shaking the web.

Were you there?  If not don't feel bad because tomorrow is another day and you can still make your voice count.  As Gandhi said - whatever you do will be insignificant - but it is important that you do it. 

We should try to be true to ourselves and think of those coming after us and those people living in low-lying islands in the Pacific who are at real risk of losing their entire countries to sea level rise caused by global warming.  I think as well as needing technical standards such as ISO 14064 to keep us on the straight and narrow we need to think big and not be overly  concerned with  our individual selves ( I do it myself a lot!)

It is interestring that other civilisations failed because of environmental failures

• the Maya over farmed in their lands
• the people of Easter Island sent out a man to cut down their last tree

A book by Jared Diamond lists the five factors that drive societal failure:

• hostile neighbors - probably not a risk today
• loss of trading partners - also probably not an issue as trading partners are tripping over each other to trade
• environmental damage - a real problem
• climatic change - a real problem

and how societies respond to these potentially devastating environmental problems - this is the real problem as countries are argueing over who should do what about climate change - how can we ensure inter-generational as well as international equity in dealing with climate change, unless we all take responsibility? 

The general assumption is that civilizations evolve from benign environments that sustain what we may consider a natural state of being, but where poor resource management will lead to certain failure.  I think we are at the poor resource management stage today - the real question is what are you and I going to do about it?????

I will leave you with this thought from a long time ago- it asks us to think for ourselves and not to be  inattentive of government but to be engaged and active.  The gist of it is - we need to be watchful and cautious - Standards are essential!

"...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow.  ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter.  From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.  I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing." -- Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

GHG emissions and reductions are becoming a commodity. There is a real need for trained and competent:

• GHG quantifiers
• GHG verifiers
• Competent, credible firms working in this space

To support:

• emerging market mechanisms, both voluntary and compliance markets,
• non-market reporting schemes
• corporate social responsibility initiatives

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