Kick the Habit: A UN Guide to Climate Neutrality

designed for use by business but does not assume it will necessarily suit everybody. So it provides bespoke calculators designed for individual com- panies who think they need more sophisticated help. There is a greenhouse gas event calculator devised by Climate Neutral ( www.climatecalculator.org ). It is limited to the US, offers CO 2 emissions calculations, and is concerned with the amount of carbon your guests will generate by travelling to an event you are holding. BT British Telecom is one of the world’s leading providers of communica- tions solutions and services, servicing around 18 million customers in 170 countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia-Pacific. BT employs over 106 000 people worldwide. It set its first carbon reduction target in 1992 and has already reduced its own UK CO 2 emissions by 60 per cent on 1996 levels. In 2007, BT developed a new strategy to further reduce its CO 2 emis- sions to 80 per cent below 1996 levels. The climate change strategy has four elements, and sets out how BT will reduce its footprint; influence its customers; influence its suppliers; and engage its employees. Using one of the UK’s largest computer-based monitoring and targeting systems, it collects data at half-hour intervals from more than 6 000 sites. This has helped the company identify wasted energy earlier than by relying on a monthly bill. BT reports its emissions according to the inventory guidelines in the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Up to now cities that wanted to calculate their GHG emissions either fol- lowed their own path or adopted an inventory tool designed for business. ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability has now released a draft Inter- national Local Government Greenhouse Gas Protocol with two parts: the Emissions Analysis Protocol provides guidance on making an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions and reporting them, and the Measures Analysis Protocol provides guidance on quantifying the emission reduction benefits of mitigation policies and projects. The Protocol goes hand-in-hand with an on-line software tool to plan, monitor and report on GHG emissions and to be released towards the end of 2008 for use by local governments around the globe. www.iclei.org/ghgprotocol . CITIES

THE CYCLE – COUNT AND ANALYSE KICK THE HABIT 71