Our thinking

Time to get serious about net-zero

28 August, 2020

On Thursday 20th August it was two years since Greta Thunberg’s first school strike for the climate took place outside the Swedish parliament. 

Since then the world has gone on to emit more than 80 Gigatons of CO2 with a backdrop of wildfires, heatwaves, flooding, and the collapsing of glaciers and ecosystems across the planet. This week Greta once again called on society to start treating this as a crisis. She stressed the importance of rapid action to reduce emissions to zero so that we can stay below 1.5C of warming. 

The scale and urgency of the problem is in no doubt. Which should surely put ever more focus on solutions. Our friends at Tortoise would agree – this week they have been shining the light on creative innovations in fashion and transport which will help pave the way to net-zero. 

The list includes a fashion industry push for renewable energy at factory level which could lead to a 39% reduction in carbon emissions, and the potential of utilising new processes and fibres – new drying methods alone have been shown to cut emissions by 62%, and using organic fibres which can use less than 94% of carbon emissions. 

Tortoise has also explored solutions in the transport industry from the carrot of incentivising electric vehicles to make them cheaper to buy than petrol, to the stick of penalising manufacturers if they don’t reach targets to sell a certain amount of electric vehicles. Although this might feel quite far off Norway shows the way forward – it has undertaken these measures and is now on track for achieving 100% of new car sales to be electric vehicles by 2025. 

These examples indicate that there is a need for businesses to think creatively and differently to achieving net-zero. Here at Good Business we have developed the Net Zero protocol to help clients along this journey. Please do get in touch with Marie@good.business if you would like to find out more about how we can help you to reach your net-zero potential. 

By Gemma Coate