As reported earlier in this blog, SBS is committed to tracking its carbon footprint month by month so that we can track both our efforts to lessen the climate altering use of energy by our company, and determine the offset needed to mitigate the emissions we do create.  As our company has been growing, so too has our footprint.

For a small office based business like SBS, the major generators of greenhouse gas emissions are utility based (from natural gas and electricity consumption), vehicle based emissions, and emissions resulting from company related air travel.

Vehicle based emissions comprise both employee commuting and mileage directly related to business activities.  With the season change many of us are biking and walking to work, but business is picking up and the company truck is busy most days hauling personnel, equipment, and materials to our various jobs.  We look forward to the development of cleaner modes of transportation, but in the meantime we try to keep the number of trips to a minimum.

Even though our company business doesn’t require a lot of air travel (6,453 air miles in April), the GHG emission penalty incurred by that activity is substantial (51% of our total footprint).   The effects of burning thousands of gallons of jet fuel in the upper atmosphere combined with the sheer energy needed to launch these modern behemoths into the air creates huge climatic impacts of which everyone must be fully cognizant  as they consider their travel needs.  Air travel is truly a miracle of modern technology, but so are teleconferencing, web based education, and high speed rail (in some locations).  But a certain amount of air travel is a necessary concession for any business operating in today’s global economy, and we are determined to plan each necessary flight with efficiency and economy of movement in mind.

SBS Carbon Footprint Trend - April 2010

Our utility footprint continues to grow despite a seasonal overall decrease in the office utility based emissions.  The reason for this is found in SBS’s growing presence within the office space which is shared with Kibo Group Architecture, and doesn’t represent a significant overall increase in office GHG emissions.

So that’s where SBS stands in terms of its current carbon footprint.  We’re presently offsetting our emissions through ClearSky Climate Solutions based on the footprint we developed during November and December of 2009, with a 25% margin for growth.  Airline travel is so variable that we offset that part of the picture on a quarterly basis after the fact.  In a way we’re caught between a rock and a hard place in regards of wanting to grow the business (with all of its travel needs and equipment hauling) and the ardent desire to keep our own footprint small.  Hopefully with every pound of GHG we create we’re keeping much more out of the atmosphere.

We’ll keep doing our best.  Feel free to get in touch with comment, questions or advice.

Jim Roach
SBS Energy Project Technician
jroach@sbslink.com

Tags: carbon footprint, carbon neutrality, energy conservation