NCCSL on carbon-neutral drive

by Lalin FERNANDOPULLE

The National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka (NCCSL) has launched a program to raise awareness among corporates on the need to be carbon neutral and enhance efficiency.

Sujeiva Samaraweera

The, NCCSL Secretary, Sujeiva Samaraweera said that the objective of the program is to help organisations mitigate the carbon output and transform the businessess.

"The Chamber has been conducting seminars and workshops to educate the corporates to be carbon neutral by reducing its foot print which is essential to combat effects of global warming and climate change", he said.

A carbon footprint of an organisation is the total emission of Green House Gas(GHG). GHGs are emitted through burning of fossil fuels such as gas, oil and coal.

Transportation, use of electricity, site fuel combustions, production of food and waste generation contribute to the emission of GHGs.

Samaraweera said that due to many countries showing a blatant disregard to the Kyoto Protocol corporates will be urged to cut their carbon footprints or pay a penalty.

The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in 1997 as a supplement to the Framework Convention on Climate Change and ratified in 2005.

Richer countries are subjected to legally binding targets for cutting GHG emissions by five percent to the 1990 level of global emission before 2012.

Samaraweera said an organisation can set targets to reduce its carbon output after calculating the carbon footprint.

The organisation then could buy carbon credits from carbon markets to become carbon neutral.

Around 65 percent of the global 500 companies have implemented carbon emission reduction targets.

Addidas, Marks & Spencer, Walmart, Tesco, TUI, the Hilton Group, Deutsche Bank and HSBC are some of the global companies which have become carbon neutral.

MAS Holdings and Brandix are some of the companies that have achieved carbon neutral status in Sri Lanka.