The roll out of COVID-19 vaccines means that hope is back on the agenda in 2021. With the UN’s climate conference COP26 coming to Glasgow in November, much of that hope will also centre on solving the climate crisis. Ian Gulland, CEO at Zero Waste Scotland, kindly shares his thoughts on the focus for 2021.

COP26 is a unique opportunity to galvanise climate action across the UK. At all levels, governments are demanding rapid action towards net-zero. At Zero Waste Scotland we are keen to help. Here are a few ideas for how you can accelerate your journey in 2021.

1. Engage your staff

National campaigns can be a great opportunity to engage with your staff and encourage them to understand and support the environmental changes you want to introduce in the workplace. We have put together a list of national campaign dates for your diary featuring a host of environmental themes from World Environment Day to Don’t Step on a Bee Day.

2. Benchmark your emissions

If you want to reduce your emissions, you need to know where they are coming from.

If you’re new to this, start simple. Speak to your energy provider or record your electricity and gas meter readings to understand how much energy you are consuming. You can get even better data by investing in monitoring devices. You can use the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s annual conversion factors to turn your energy consumption into emissions, giving you a solid benchmark to work from.

3. Avoid a post-pandemic bounce back

For many organisations, travel is a big source of emissions. Homeworking and travel restrictions will mean your emissions are probably down – the challenge is to keep it that way.

Recent months have shown that video conferencing works for almost all meetings, so why not make this your default option even after the pandemic lifts?

You could also consider if your entire workforce needs to return to the office. We estimate our day-to-day emissions fell by nearly 75% due to homeworking during the pandemic. We have now offered all our staff the chance to do so permanently, to lock in as much of those savings as possible.

4. Get your offsets right

To get your organisation to net-zero, you need to do two things – reduce your emissions as much as you can, and then offset what you cannot prevent.

Reducing emissions is always far better than offsetting them and your reliance on them should steadily decline. But where you are buying them, make sure you invest wisely. Not all offsets are equal, so look for a badge of quality, such as those detailed in our net-zero plan.

5. Green your supply chain

The products and services you consume often have a bigger climate impact than your own energy use, so taking steps to green your supply chain can result in huge emissions savings.

In Scotland alone, public sector procurement is worth a whopping £11 billion every year. If public and private sector organisations add circular economy criteria to their procurement practices, they won’t just make cost savings and reduce emissions – they’ll help grow the national market for services like re-use, repair and remanufacturing. That’s a great way to show climate leadership in the year of COP26.

For more ideas you can read Zero Waste Scotland’s net-zero plan.