American retailer Walmart has announced it will cut its supply chain emissions by 20 million tonnes by 2015.

If Walmart can do this why can’t the Australian government get our country to do the same?

My understanding is that if the government’s proposed CPRS goes ahead Australia’s emissions will be cut by around 20 million tonnes by 2015. The Australian government’s target is a 5% reduction by 2020.

According to the Environmental Leader, Walmart’s target “translates into 150 percent of the giant retailer’s estimated global carbon footprint growth over the next five years.”

On a percentage basis Walmart’s targets eclipse Australia’s by a massive amount.

Australia has over 1.2 million people employed by state governments. I’m not sure how many public servants are employed federally, on top of this number.

Walmart has around 1.9 million employees.

From a staffing perspective the number of people whom Walmart and the Australian government have “operational control” over are not that dissimilar in magnitude. Obviously as a retailer Walmart has a much bigger supply chain over which it has influene than the Australian government. So in this regard a direct comparison between Walmart and the Australian government is not really fair. But on the other hand the Australian government in theory can influence all Australians to reduce their carbon footprint, either through regulation or incentives.

What is striking about the Walmart announcement is the seriousness of their commitment. If all businesses were this serious about reducing their carbon footprint our government’s incapacity to cut Australia’s carbon emissions would be less of a worry.

If Walmart, an organisation famous for keeping costs low and operating leanly, can significant cut its emissions, can’t yours do the same? I need to be clear here, Walmart is a for-profit business. Its margins aren’t huge – in 2006 its profit margin was 3.2%. Yet it can clearly see that the environmental benefit of cutting its emissions is not a bad business decision. 

Most of Walmart’s savings are likely to come from energy efficiency. Energy efficiency provides a positive return on investment. It makes economic and business sense, as well as environmental sense.
If Walmart can commit to significantly cutting their emissions, can’t your organisation do the same? Our government can’t, but you can. Are all Australian’s with worries about climate change going to be shamed by a business from across the Pacific, or are we all going to step up personally and in our workplaces and get serious about reducing greenhouse gas pollution?

The Elithis Tower in Dijon, France, consumes just 20 kWh/m2 and was designed to cost no more than a conventional office buildings. The February issue of Ecolibirum, the magazine of AIRAH (Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating) reported on this building.

It is a 10 storey building of around 5,000 m2, with solar panels covering the rooftop. A “light shield” allows light but not radiant energy into the building. Low environmental impact materials have been used in its construction.

This is an extraordinary achievement, and is an example of human ingenuity rising to the climate change challenge. Most office buildings of that size would consume over 200 kWh/m2, and a very efficient building around 60 kWh/m2.

The Elithis Tower is the first building that I am aware of that beats the 30 kWh/m2 we achieved in the CarbonetiX office in 2008. In 2009 our emissions crept up to 33 kWh/m2, probably due to the introduction of additional computer monitors and staff countering the savings from skylights we installed at the end of 2008.

The Elithis Tower sets a great standard which I hope inspires further great engineering and design to make low or no energy use buildings the norm rather than the exception.

Last year VECCI - the Victorian Employers Chamber of Commerce and Industry – undertook a survey of business attitudes to climate change.

A surprising – and very disappointing result – was that many businesses believed they had done all they could do to minimise their energy use and carbon footprint.

This self-limiting belief means that these businesses are wasting money and energy, and producing greenhouse gases – needlessly.

One of our customers, who has already cut their energy use by up to 40% across a range of facilities, had us do a quick search for further energy saving opportunities late last year. This organisation is well known as being a leader in energy conservation and saving. Were we able to identify further opportunities to reduce their energy use, within their payback period? The answer to that is a resounding YES.

Henry Ford had a great saying which I love to quote. “If you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right.”

If you turn all your computers off at the end of the day and don’t leave lights on in empty rooms you might think you are doing all you can to save energy. But that would be wrong. For example, you probably still have opportunity to delamp (remove excess lamps in areas that are too bright), and to save computer power through aggressive power management settings. And that’s without investing any capital! If you have some money to invest you can save any more, and get a return on investment the banks would kill for.

If you want to cut your energy use, you can!

The link below goes to an interactive map of the world showing the impact in various places of a average global temperature rise of 4 degrees Celcius. For example some parts of Australia would experience a 6 degree rise, whist the oceans around Australia a 2 or 3 degree rise.

http://www.actoncopenhagen.decc.gov.uk/content/en/embeds/flash/4-degrees-large-map-final. Note the map doesn’t work in Internet Explorer 7 - it did work in Firefox for me.

The map was produced by the Met office in the UK, and is a good tool for identifying the predicted “hot spots” (a bad pun, I know) for forest fires, crops, water availability, sea level rise, marine, drought, permafrost, tropical cyclones and extreme temperature.

There was a tremendous build up to this international climate conference. There was lots of anticipation by the public. It was declared to be the ‘most important international gathering of our time’. Peaceful public demonstrations all around the world intensified as the date of the conference approached. People in numerous countries publicly declared that they want change to avoid a global disaster due to greenhouse emissions. They clearly indicated that they’ve had enough of talk and wanted action, now. So did the climate conference live up to the expectations?

The following statement by Yvo de Boer sums up the outcomes succinctly:

”The Copenhagen Accord, which was expected highly to lead to a legally binding treaty, aroused opposition from several developing countries, who said the emission reduction targets were not ambitious enough and refused to adopt it. Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of UN Framework Conventionon Climate Change said at his closing press briefing that the Copenhagen Accord not only failed his hope of achieving a legally binding treaty, but also failed the hope of an agreement for such a treaty. But he still believed that countries should strive for such goals at the next UN climate conference in Mexico in 2010.”

Unfortunately lots of the sceptics predicted this result (and I’m not talking about climate change sceptics either but sceptics who don’t believe that we should place our faith in governments and leaders). Respected climate scientists are urging for immediate cuts to GHG emissions to prevent a more than 2C increase in global temperatures. Well-known international economists are insisting on allocating more funds towards low carbon technologies but again without support from the top people are cautious about investing in the renewable energy market. The fossil fuel market must become non-profitable to drive investments in the low-carbon economy.

Another statement by Monbiot again summarises where we are at: “The longer a comprehensive agreement is delayed, the steeper the emissions cuts will have to be if we are to avoid climate breakdown. Beyond a certain point the scale of the cuts becomes politically, economically and technologically infeasible. That point must already be close”.

So we will have to wait another year to see whether the international leaders can agree on some sort of binding treaty instead of everyone doing their own thing without any scrutiny. In the mean time you don’t have to wait to make a change. Start living a more sustainable lifestyle and support renewable energy and companies that are genuinely trying to make a difference to our planet.

(Ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/30/stern-monbiot-copenhagen-deal/print)