SIRA – Turning Sustainability into Reality

We must become more sustainable
The move to a more sustainable, low carbon economy is bound to lead to major social and environmental shifts affecting governments, businesses and individuals worldwide. These shifts will pose questions but also offer major opportunities to organisations.

The key forces at work in the drive towards a low carbon economy are:

Risk – managing the continuity of energy supplies and the rising cost of emission generation
Responsibility – responding effectively to stakeholder pressure and providing governance transparency
Regulation – complying with the growing demands of legislation, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, climate change agreements and the carbon reduction commitment (CRC)
Reward – competing successfully in the sustainable economy by harnessing lower-cost operating models, green consumer trends and opportunities for new revenue streams

Measuring Performance
There are a number of different sustainability and environmental standards – the UN Global Compact, the ISO 14000 series and the World Resources Institute are just some of them. Broadest in scope is the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), used by 700 of the largest international organisations. It reports across six areas, each of which contains performance indicators derived from operational and economic data, working practices and policy.

The Sustainability Journey
Clearly, no organisation will be able to change overnight to one where sustainability lies at the heart of its operations. It is a journey – and one that may appear daunting. You have start with an understanding of where you are now, by baselining the sustainability footprint. Benchmarks of policies, procedures and operational data are crucial for defining both the starting point and the destination: a successful, fully-integrated and sustainable organisation.

Taking the first steps:
Sustainablity Indicator Reporting Application(SIRA)
We designed SIRA to provide building blocks, which can be scaled as your organisation evolves to report on a wider range of sustainability issues or as legislative reporting requirements become more complex. Feeds can pull data from existing reporting tools or you can enter information manually.

A key feature of SIRA is the flexibility of its underlying data management system. Using awardwinning technology from UK market leader Kalido, the SIRA platform allows easy integration and management of emissions data, regardless of their source or format. Kalido’s technology also ensures that data is remembered, so even if reporting formats change, all changes are tracked. This powerful foundation creates a robust audit trail.

Our Journey – And Our Achievement
Since 2006, our internal Stamp down our carbon footprint programme has brought together measurement, monitoring, strategy and the reduction of our environmental impact.

The results so far are encouraging, exceeding our 2010 emissions reduction targets two years earlier than expected. Since 2006, we have cut:

Carbon emissions by 23 per cent
Electricity use by 13 per cent
Business air travel by 49 per cent
Business road travel by 26 per cent
Office waste to landfill by 64 per cent
Paper use by 34 per cent

Teleconferencing has more than doubled – helping to cut travel spending by £7 million in less than two years, while avoiding spending another £5 million. Switching to greener energy supplies has saved more than £3 million.

As a result, we operate more efficiently, making us more competitive and more sustainable in an increasingly difficult market.