Earlier in August, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their Sixth Assessment Report, in what is considered to be the most up-to-date assessment of how global warming will affect our planet. Though climate change is now seen as an inevitability, there are steps we can all take to reduce its impact. 

Simon Pyne, Founder and Claire Below, Net Zero Carbon Consultant at Greener Energy Futures discuss their thoughts on the report and what businesses can do to lower their carbon impact and what might be in the next IPCC report.

What are your immediate thoughts on the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report?

Claire: I think in some ways, it's kind of what we already knew about the damaging impact of humans on the planet and global warming. It's not saying anything revolutionary that we'd never heard of before, it's just laying it out very clearly, with all the possible evidence that's come out since the last report.

One of the newer things in this report is quite hard detailed information about each region. That hopefully might emphasise that this is happening everywhere. It's not just watching things that are happening on the news. 

Simon: I think what is interesting about this is that the volume has been turned up. Seven years ago when we had the last report, the world wasn't as receptive to the issue. Now what we're seeing is a common message from different kinds of voices that are raising the volume on this. The amount of media attention it has received and the immediate environmental catastrophes we have seen have made this much more real and tangible. 

Of course, climate change is accelerating and so what we're seeing every time we see these reports is smaller windows. That sense of runaway train momentum is scary. 

What were your three main takeaways as environmental consultants? 

Claire: The first one is urgency. You can't just wait for whenever it is a problem in the future, you need to start thinking of doing things to reduce your impact. As already mentioned, the window has got smaller and the intensity and the magnitude of the impact has got bigger. 

The second is ramping up targets as we have got to actually listen to increase our ambition and some of the previous reports have already looked at the difference between 1.5c degrees and 2c degrees. Right now, we're already at 1.1c degrees, so we have not actually got very long. We need to aim for 1.5c degrees instead of 2c degrees because we have got to assume that some people won't quite make it to the more ambitious targets.

Finally, everyone needs to act. We all need to reduce our carbon emissions, you can't just wait for others to do it.

Simon: For me, it’s real action rather than words. If we think like this, then what we see is a lot of commitments and targets and ultimately, actual action. 

Next, we need to drop fossil fuel investment. 

Last, but certainly not least, is inclusivity. This means that we need to include every organisation. The incentive to change is no longer about micro gestures, it's about systemic change.

Do you think that people, businesses and governments will sit up and listen following the report? 

Claire: Hopefully; and I think it will resonate with people more this time given the chaotic year of weather extremes we have already had. This should make it feel like it is a real threat that is already happening. The extreme heatwaves that we have seen this year will give people an impression of what a further 2 degrees or worse could look like and that might motivate people to take action, especially with a regional breakdown. 

Many public figures have said “this is really bad” and “this is a really dramatic warning”, but unless they actually take that thinking with them, and turn that into actions or policies, it's not going to make a difference. One of the key findings from this report is that human activities have warmed the atmosphere, however, that was also in the previous report which is now nearly 10 years ago. Emissions have continued to rise since that, so maybe the message didn't quite translate into action last time.

Simon: The UN report is designed to help governments understand the situation. All governments involved there had to sign off on the wording, so there's no hiding and that means that it informs policy. 

It is now in the lap of the government to say what policies should be implemented to tackle this problem. My belief in its ability to happen is that it’s going to be down to the confidence of individual political environments in each country, which is unfortunately not strong. 

Of the organisations I work with, I've seen two responses and they're quite emotionally driven. What I've seen is people go, “Argh, it’s terrible”, and for some, a secondary reaction to reel themselves in and say, “Right, let's get on with it. We need to fix this, we're empowered.” At Greener Energy Futures, we see the risks first, but we also have a position of leverage to encourage people to do something about it. You've got to seize onto your ability to make a difference.

What is your advice to established and start up businesses that are looking to reduce their carbon footprint?

Claire: If you're a startup, you may not have established and entrenched operations or patterns so it could be a really good opportunity to make sure that you're starting your business in a low-carbon way. 

If you're a bigger organisation, get started on reducing your emissions now, don't leave it until the future. Work out where the biggest parts of your footprint are and tackle them first, as those areas might take a long time to change. 

Don't try to rewrite the rulebook - come up with some ideas yourself but talk to people, see what worked for them, what didn't work so well and then you’ll save a lot of thinking and process time. It will make it better for everyone because you will be able to reduce your emissions quicker. So I think that would be a good line to go down to save everybody from making a development plan. 

Simon: If you look at it as a market opportunity, organisations irrespective of size should see it as a massive strategic trend so that they can get ahead of their competitors. This is going to be an area where organisations that understand the changes will benefit. 

I think that organisations, large or small, should think of it as: “No man is an island,” in that all organisations are reliant on partners to deliver their offer. That means that if you can collaborate tightly with those partners, you can both deliver environmental gains and better output to your end customers.

Do you think there is still a lack of understanding from businesses on how to lower their carbon emissions?

Claire: I think sometimes it feels like businesses have a few buzzwords because they think that is what will make their customers happy. However, the depth of understanding of why they should be doing those things is sometimes lacking. I find this particularly as a younger person - many companies just say “we care a lot about the environment”, without showing quantitative targets and case studies of what they're doing to achieve it. 

Working with Greener Energy Futures has shown me that the people that have that detailed information about what they're doing and how they're doing it tend to be the ones that are doing more. If I’m looking to shop, organisations that say what they’re doing about carbon sound like they know what they’re talking about. It’s more of an incentive to use them for whatever purpose I am looking for. 

Simon: I see three camps of organisations. I see the ones who don't get it and there's no commitment at all to environmental issues. Those will take a long time to get on board; then there are some who have made a gesture towards the environment but it is misinformed, limited or misunderstood in some way. That is, I would say, the biggest chunk that needs working with, as it gives us a chance to create more discussion and education on the subject. 

Lastly I see some organisations, and they're a small subset, who both get it as an issue and are doing something about it. Those are great and that's not really so much where Greener Energy Futures sits; I think we sit on the map of the biggest group, which is those who know they want to do something about it but aren't quite sure what.  

Claire: The other thing is that a lot of the people I know are looking for jobs at the moment, but even in a COVID damaged workplace, a lot of people have said, “I'll never work for an airline” or “I'll never work for this” because they don't want to work for a company that doesn't give off the impression that it cares about the environment. That's quite a hard stance to take when you're just looking for any possible job. So it's definitely having an influence.

Simon: I think as emerging employees, what you've got is your powers of skills and there is a skills shortage. I would argue that you are able to shape the market by defining where your skills go. 

 

What funding programmes and initiatives can they join to help them achieve their net-zero journeys?

Simon: There are incentives; the government has committed to build back better and has stocked up money in various forms to make it easier to fund green initiatives. Initiatives like the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme are going to be a rolling programme of billions of pounds to decarbonise public buildings. In the West of England, the council has a rolling programme of energy efficiency for businesses and so these pots of money will continue to appear. 

There is innovation-based funding as well, for example, the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund that we've supported organisations with. The funding coming from different streams of government is not enough by itself. So you'll also find equipment vendors will say, “Buy our kit, don't pay anything for it now. We'll take a share of the savings, and you just pay us back over time”. So it's like a rental model for energy services and that's a way of getting investment in big change without having to stick a bunch of money down.

Given what we know, how different do you think the next IPCC report will be?

Claire: Well, they usually come out every eight years and the next one is going to be approaching 2030, which is when a lot of net zero goals are set for, so it could have a very different outlook. 

It will be interesting to see how the 2020s have gone, whether we have reduced carbon emissions and if all of those really ambitious scenarios will be looking much more likely. Or if it is similar to where we are now, it might be an even more dire warning that we're running out of time to solve these problems, or these impacts have gotten even worse and I think that’s one thing that will definitely be evident in the next one.

This one was written maybe up to a year ago. So the stuff we've seen this year about heatwaves, forest fires, the hottest temperatures ever and flooding, those impacts will feed into the next one and it will probably be able to say more confidently that we're already seeing the impacts in full swing.

Other than that I think it depends a lot on what happens in the next 10 years.

Simon: I think the point is that we don't know; what we do know is how it would make us feel if that report shows a step in the right direction or continuation of our current trajectory. If it were a step in the same direction, I think our heart rates would increase and we'd be looking at things around us thinking “Is it going to be here in 50 years”, whereas if we see the step in the right direction, it would elicit a more hopeful reaction. 

We know that we've made a mistake as humanity but are we prepared to own it and change? We can then start dreaming about a world where we've got justice. I’m hopeful that different lifestyle trends will start emerging that actually respect the world and its people. That's what I'd like to see and I think reframing helps you to commit yourself emotionally to doing the right thing.