Develop a Plan

In order to follow-through on your commitment, a plan for meeting the commitment needs to be developed. Ideally this plan should be part of the longer term business plan of your organization and integrated into any investment planning that may be occurring in your organization.

Create and implement a list of directed actions that reduce your GHG emissions

Your carbon footprint, already measured, is a historical picture of a period of time that has already occurred. Any directed actions to reduce GHG emissions will be calculated from the information contained in the GHG inventory to determine the directed actions that make the most sense. These could include energy efficiency, purchases of renewable energy, operational improvements and/or fuel switching.

When considering how to reduce emissions, you will want to consider a number of factors including:

• The activity which is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions;
• The cost of reducing emissions in one area versus the cost in another area;

The GHG emissions reduction plan is a customized document specific to the type of organization and the findings from the quantification of the baseline carbon footprint. The plan should be revisited annually and performance should be evaluated against the targets outlined in the plan.