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B.I.G. is on course to achieve a zero environmental footprint by 2030. That’s right, zero. To make this journey more tangible, we’d like to offer you a passenger’s seat from which you’ll be able to really get up close and immerse yourself in our various sustainability projects. In this edition: collaborating with Climact to calculate our carbon footprint in detail.
Achieving a zero environmental footprint is easier said than done. Before taking action, we first need to know where we stand. Over the past few months, we have been working to develop an overall understanding of our carbon footprint and its key drivers. Now, the next step is to work with an external party to help us fill in the gaps and test our findings against standards, protocols, and industry benchmarks.
Counting on Climact
“Climact specializes in the calculation of carbon footprints”, explains Sustainability Manager Femke Faelens. “Founded in 2007, they have already empowered more than 150 organizations, cities and public authorities to act on climate change. A few notable customers of Climact include WWF, Greenpeace, and the European Commission. Through strategic advice, Climact aims to remove barriers among their clients and to help them implement solutions to reduce their carbon impact. Ultimately, their goal is to facilitate a sustainable zero-emission society by 2050.”
Turning data into valuable insights
“We launched our collaboration with Climact on 19 September 2022. The main challenge for us was undoubtedly to collect all the data: figures on energy consumption rates, raw materials, transport ... Climact is currently scrutinizing and consolidating all that data to give us our global carbon footprint, and will then help us to initiate our reduction roadmaps.”
Time to take adequate action
“By the end of this year, together with Climact we will have calculated our full carbon footprint, which means that we will already be able to set the first scenarios of our roadmaps in motion. Initially, we will be taking action on a global basis, but during the first quarter of 2023 we will also be encouraging the different divisions and sites within our group to act individually. This will take us one step closer to achieving a zero environmental footprint.”
