Print.IT Reseller - issue 47

PRINT IT RESELLER.UK 25 ENVIRONMENT calculating and offsetting the carbon emissions from their MFPs to make them Carbon Zero,” he explained. To date, Toshiba TEC UK’s Carbon Zero scheme has offset 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) – the equivalent of 46,874 return flights from London to New York, the electricity used in 73,542 houses over the course of a year, and the CO2 generated from making 2.5 billion cups of coffee. Carbon Zero business In 2013, Toshiba TEC invited its dealers to participate directly in the scheme. By extending the Carbon Zero scheme to its channel partners, it was offering them a ready-made CSR policy as well as placing them in a stronger position to tender for new business with larger corporate clients, who increasingly challenge their supply chain to support their own carbon reduction agenda. In addition to offsetting the equivalent amount of CO2 to that of any Toshiba product’s footprint, working with co2balance also enables Toshiba partners to become Carbon Zero businesses. Signing up is straightforward, partners simply supply details of their company’s gas and electricity usage, water and waste data, business travel and accommodation. co2balance audit the information supplied and provide recommendations on how they can reduce their carbon footprint and ongoing energy costs. Once a full carbon footprint has been established for a dealership, co2balance supplies and retires the required carbon credits on their behalf in the approved international register. Dealers then receive a certificate recognising them as a Carbon Zero business and can use the associated branding for marketing purposes over the following 12 months. Premier Office is one Toshiba partner that is credited as a Carbon Zero business. “We started carbon offsetting three to four years ago,” Nick Martin explained. “We promote it on our emails and we tell people about it. We find companies that are themselves environmentally-friendly really like it. So we made the decision to go the whole way, to do our bit and offset our own carbon emissions and become a Carbon Zero company.” Sharples Group, a Toshiba Premier Solutions Provider is also a Carbon Zero company. One million tonnes co2balance currently has over 100 active projects, some of which are multi-projects. “We control about one million tonnes of carbon per year,” Simpson said, adding that this figure is likely to rise exponentially in the next few years. “The Paris agreement kicks in in 2021 and that offers scope for massive expansion of the carbon market.” In conjunction with that there is the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA), which aims to offset any annual increase in total carbon emissions from international civil aviation above 2020 levels through the reduction of such emissions outside of the aviation industry. “All our work is gearing up for that,” Simpson explained. “We’re talking to major airlines both directly and with our partners.” He continued: “The one thing that has changed over the past fourteen years is that we no longer have to talk about what climate change is. Even up to five years ago we were still explaining why there is a need to reduce carbon emissions, but now it’s almost become a given that the projects we manage mitigate climate change.” The company is a firm advocate of delivering high impact, small scale community focussed projects. “What we do is different, if a client asks us to build a bespoke project, we can do that in any territory and everything we do is Gold Standard and sits within the international rules,” Simpson explained. Simpson points out that the work it does is predominantly in LDCs. “We don’t make it easy for ourselves, we run projects in remote villages which can take hours to reach by road. We prefer that though, because what we do has a much greater impact in those places than it would in a more developed place or within the Western world. “We definitely don’t do what we do the easy way but we do it the best way from a community perspective. Today people are really interested in the impact of our projects and that’s a great position to be in,” he said in conclusion. www.co2balance.com The Paris agreement kicks in in 2021 and that offers scope for massive expansion of the carbon market