Decarbonisation summer series 01. Overcome the barriers
Welcome to the first part of Verco's summer series to take action on decarbonisation!
This first article focusses on overcoming the cost of decarbonisation, a topic which Verco recently discussed at an industry event alongside The Climate Group, Modulaire, The Aldersgate Group and IEMA.
Part 01. Overcome the barriers to decarbonisation.
The takeaways from Verco's recent 'Overcoming the cost of decarbonisation' event revealed that three issues are underpinning a lack of progress on decarbonisation: Uncertainty about the cost of energy, wariness over future capital flows and a persistent fear that the cost of decarbonisation is prohibitive.
What businesses can do to overcome the barriers
1. Shift the focus away from cost: We need to emphasise the full ROI of decarbonisation projects, demonstrating not just cost and carbon savings, but wider benefits such as reduced risk exposure and social/ wellbeing benefits.
2. Build data confidence to drive collaboration: Rigorous datasets and clear baselines are essential to establish your project's ROI, equipping colleagues in finance and risk roles to collaborate with you so key projects get sign off.
3. Decouple the cost of decarbonisation from shorter-term budget cycles: Challenging projects tackling the most material emissions can take time and sap momentum. Keeping them aligned to the long-term strategy allows individual projects to be seen in a broader context, and against longer timescales.
Net Zero Barriers Assessment: get a free, instant report
It’s important to know where to begin in order to prioritise resource and effort. Wherever you are on your sustainability journey, it's likely you will face barriers such as data management issues, delayed financial commitment, supply chain complications and/ or a lack of internal resources. Often businesses are all too aware of these barriers but unsure of how to address them.
To help companies overcome this, We've published a free Net Zero Barriers Assessment. This is an online assessment which gives you a free, instant summary report alongside recommended actions and a simple prioritisation visual.
How are you overcoming the costs of decarbonisation?
Verco has access to hundreds of costed decarbonisation projects, with evidenced ROI and OPEX/CAPEX considerations. Whether your priority is optimising obvious topics like energy management or driving action on underutelised decarbonisation drivers like Green IT and digital decarbonisation, we can talk you through the options available to you.