Making Your Organization Carbon Neutral

How Does My Office or Organization Become Carbon Neutral?

The process for going carbon neutral at work is similar to doing it for your home, but will most likely involve factoring in more emissions sources into your calculations. You can decide to go 100% carbon neutral or to phase in at a certain percentage that builds to ward 100% carbon neutrality. If you work for a large organization, another approach could be to target a specific building, department, project or event and develop a plan toward 100% carbon neutrality over a time frame that works within your values and budget. Here are some of the broad categories you will need to factor in:

  • Office emissions (Kwhs, therms, propane, heating oil)
  • Business processes, shipping (total miles)
  • Business travel (air travel and ground travel with auto m.p.g. data)
  • Conferences, events (ground and air travel and office emissions)
  • Employee commuting (annual ground/air travel)
  • Other

Next Steps:

  1. Discuss with your workplace decision-makers the idea of going carbon neutral. If you wish, invite SGA to an office lunch/meeting to discuss the details of going carbon neutral.
  2. Develop a plan for gathering your emissions data for the organization, office, department, or a specific building, project or event.
  3. Use the carbon calculator to determine emissions quantity.
  4. Incorporate carbon offsets into organizational/project budget.
  5. Select carbon offset options (s) equivalent to the amount of carbon you wish to offset.
  6. Discuss options for reducing emissions and moving toward 100% carbon neutrality.