What can companies do to prepare for the eventual impact of carbon accounting?
Companies should start thinking about a carbon strategy and how this is going to affect their business. The first step is to perform carbon footprinting. That usually flushes out a number of areas of improvement or areas of vulnerability to see where the carbon-intensive activities are taking place. Once a company knows where it needs to improve, it can start laying out a roadmap. The low-lying fruit is often in building operations and maintenance. The U.S. Green Building Council (www.usgbc.org) has a certification program called LEED Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It’s a very detailed, point-based system to let you quantify the ‘greenness’ of your building and have it certified. How will carbon-reducing efforts be documented? If you do take early action, it’s really important to document the reductions and register with a voluntary carbon registry. Voluntary registries help ensure that early adopters are not punished for their efforts. For example, let’s say your compa
