Australian companies should be turning towards reducing their emissions now or pay more in the future with drastically increasing costs. Managing Director of Balance Carbon, Matt Shorten, says that businesses have to make changes to meet the increasing pressures associated with an impending carbon price across the Australian economy. Our licensed electricians at Trojan TechGroup can help businesses reduce their energy costs.
The emissions market is attacking Australian businesses in two directions, firstly from foreign and domestic customers imposing their carbon reduction commitments and from the Federal Government’s obligation to a carbon price through an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) or similar.
Shorten predicts that the carbon costs will increase dramatically, He says the current debated cost per tonne of CO2 under the first year of an Australian ETS is $10 and businesses should expect that to double and potentially even triple by 2015.
Companies producing 125 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide within a fixed financial year are already prone to mandatory reporting and disclosure, under the Federal Government’s 2007 NGER Act. The legislation’s threshold falls to 87.5 kilotonnes in 2009-10, and will drop in 2010-11 to 50 kiltonnes. However, the management and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is not only about the direct cost or about avoiding legislation penalties, rather, Australian businesses should get on board as many industries in other countries already have emission reduction commitments already set up. This gives overseas competitors a useful way to block imports from Australia.
One company was approached by Armani and Marks & Spencer who want the top-quality Australian wool, but would only purchase it with an emissions offset price that covers the raising of the sheep, the shearing, super washing, spinning, dyeing and freighting. Supply chains are now asking companies to supply that offset figure.
UK company, Tesco, is beginning to require product suppliers to label their products, so a product label will tell you how many grams CO2 there are per gram of product. This gives consumers the opportunity to make an informed decision.
On the whole, there are some risks with reducing carbon emissions but there are also some fairly considerable prospects in a carbon-constrained environment.