Since it was founded in 2001, Carbon Trust's work with businesses, governments and the public sector has saved over £5bn in energy costs and over 50 megatonnes of carbon emissions for its clients. Carbon Trust works with a wide range of organisations to prove that a sustainable future is affordable, technically feasible and brings social and economic benefits. It measures and certifies the environmental footprints of organisations, products and services. And it develops, invests in and deploys low carbon technologies, including energy efficiency and renewable power.
Projects around the world have brought a slew of recent successes for the group as it works to drive down the costs of green technologies. Helping organisations develop frameworks to measure, evaluate and improve their performance is another part of its work.
Recent highlights include the design and introduction of an energy efficiency financing programming in South Africa, which is expected to generate energy and carbon savings of 3.8m/C02e worth £192m, and a collaborative Offshore Wind Accelerator programme. This project included a £6m award to Dong Energy to install a prototype Suction Bucket Foundation.
Coca-Cola, Sainsbury's, GSK, PwC, Whitbread and Marks & Spencer are some of the organisations honoured by the Carbon Trust for reducing water use and waste.
It has developed environmental footprinting and labelling schemes for clients, including the Mexican government and the Chinese Manufacturers Association of Hong Kong.
The Carbon Trust gets others to act by helping them to identify opportunities that have commercial as well as environmental and social benefits. Creative policy design, finding innovative ways to finance projects and using approaches that are effective but low cost are ways of tackling barriers to action. Whatever it is working on, the Carbon Trust resists replicating the work of others because the company sees itself as a risk-taker, pushing at the boundaries of what is possible.
The Carbon Trust is broadening its services. On the one hand by moving into new areas including water waste and resource efficiency, on the other by taking the best of what it has learned in the UK and adapting it to international markets, especially the emerging economies of Latin America and Asia. This, the group believes, is where its future lies.
Lorna Thorpe is part of the wordworks network
The Guardian Sustainable Business Sustainability Case Studies contain articles on all the initiatives that met the criteria for the GSB Awards.
