To cut bottomline costs and being environmentally friendly:

Greenhouse gas audits for corporates

Ravi LADDUWAHETTY

Sri Lankan corporates will be able to slash bottomline expenditure while having environmental friendly business houses following CarbonNeutral Company, a British and American headquartered with regional office in Singapore- offering Greenhouse gas audits locally.

The project will be a partnership between the CarbonNeutral Company of Singapore and the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry of Sri Lanka. FCCISL and Carbon Neutral will sign an MoU.

This is a novel service and Sri Lankan corporates will be able to increase their export competitiveness and have enhanced credibility with the CarbonNeutral accreditation, the Managing Director of the CarbonNeutral Singapore office Rani Virdee told Daily News Business in an exclusive interview at the Gale Face Hotel on Sunday Rani, a UK citizen of Indian origin and a Bachelor of Laws Graduate of the London University was here at the invitation of the FCCISL.

Responding to a question as to what her plans for Sri Lankan corporates were, she said that the target was to engage all industrial sectors in understanding their Greenhouse gas emissions impact and taking steps to establish a baseline from which they may then target and implement reductions to achieve net zero emissions for their business operations and gain CarbonNeutral accreditation. “Every industry sector stands to benefit from understanding their carbon footprint. Wherever you reduce carbon within your business will reduce bottomline costs, “she said.

She explained that the supply chain has a responsible role to play in offering greener services and products to their clients such as those in travel and tourism, manufacturing, professional services, construction to name a few.

Asked for the advantages that could accrue to corporates, said the accreditation would result in increased revenue (brand/product/service differentiation); new product development; enhancing Requests For Proposals (RFPs) ; reducing costs (eg travel and energy spend) reutaional enhancement (brand positioning, employee engagement, improve investor relations, provides sustainability platform for the business).

By implementing carbon saving activities internal efficiencies can be acheived thus saving costs.

Meanwhile, FCCISL President Kosala Wickremanayake said Sri Lanka’s export industry will stand to benefit buy this and with the accreditation they will be able to add value to products.

He said the tourism industry also stood to gain where there would be more tourist inflows when they know that the local hotels have Carbon Neutral accreditation. He also said the small and medium industry sector would also be a target sector.