Climate Action: A toolkit for business

Ibec has launched ‘Climate Action: A toolkit for business’ in collaboration with Accenture. This comprehensive toolkit provides businesses with the information they need for their climate action journey and provides practical guidance on how to develop an enduring climate action strategy.

Corporate sustainability has taken on new meaning and importance in recent years. Once largely a matter of environmental compliance and good public image, it now encompasses a wide array of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks, and has become a question of business value and survival.

Irish businesses are taking steps in the right direction by committing to important initiatives, but many companies are grappling with how they are going to achieve their ambitious targets. This task is made even harder by the labyrinth of target setting frameworks, climate pledges, policy initiatives, and commercial offerings jostling for attention.

Through this Climate Action Toolkit, Ibec and Accenture share learnings, experience, and best practice, which can be used by executives to understand the business imperative, and more importantly to develop a best practice approach, to support businesses to deliver on carbon reduction. It provides an overview of key concepts and developments in climate change science and regulation, while also setting out five steps businesses can take on carbon measurement and subsequent reduction roadmap. It also provides additional insights and guidance for four large sectors of the Irish economy.

In our latest Ibec Responds episode we hear from Conor Minogue, Ibec Senior Executive for Infrastructure, Energy and Climate Policy, about the Toolkit and how it can help businesses develop a best-practice climate action strategy and avoid common pitfalls like greenwashing. We also talk to Nicholas Reynolds, Sustainability Manager with O’Brien Fine Foods and Caoimhe Donnelly, Chief Sustainability Officer with CIÉ, who share their experience developing climate action strategies, and setting emission reduction targets.

As part of our autumn schedule, we will announce dates for a series of events to further aid members as they commence their climate action journey.