New Forests Goes Carbon Neutral
26 February 2007
Today New Forests, a forestry investment management and advisory business, has joined the growing ranks of carbon neutral companies. This step comes in the lead up to Sydney’s earth hour, where many businesses will switch off their lights for an hour at 7:30 on March 31 to illustrate energy use and emission savings.
New Forests offset 100 percent of its GHG emissions by purchasing New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Certificates (NGACs), the allowances traded in the New South Wales Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme (GGAS). NGACs were the preferred credit type for New Forests to purchase because the scheme is well-regarded and established having rigorous protocols around additionality, measurement, and verification. The company has used internationally recognized standards to measure its emissions inventory. In FY2005-2006, New Forest emitted approximately 123 tonnes of CO2 equivalents, with the majority of those emissions originating from air travel.
Radha Kuppalli, Manager of Business Development said “New Forests has become carbon neutral because we have an ethical objective to support activities that mitigate climate change and reduce the company’s ecological footprint.” Despite being a growing business, New Forests will aim to constrain its greenhouse emissions by minimising air and other travel and reducing energy consumption in the office. Policies will also include:
- Subsidies to encourage staff to use public transport
- Switching to more energy efficient computers
- Minimising paper use and increasing the amount of recycled paper used