For CIOs committed to reducing their organisation's carbon footprint, developing a comprehensive, structured decarbonisation roadmap is a critical first step - this will form part of your IT strategy. Here is a step by step guide:
Steps to Create a Decarbonisation Roadmap
1. Assess Current State: Begin by evaluating your current IT infrastructure and operations to understand which systems and processes you have in place and highlight any gaps.
A decarbonisation roadmap starts by establishing a baseline of energy consumption and carbon emissions across all sites and facilities. Every organisation’s carbon emissions can be divided into scopes 1, 2 and 3 emissions.
To find out more about reducing scope 1 and 2 emissions in manufacturing, watch our masterclass. As mentioned, tools like CoolPlanetOS can significantly help gather, analyse, and compare this data across different facilities and visualise your path to NetZero.
2. Set Clear Objectives: Define specific, measurable goals for reducing carbon emissions within your company. Goals should closely align with the company’s wider carbon reduction goals.
If company-wide decarbonisation goals do not currently exist, find out how to set decarbonisation goals for your organisation through the Science-based Targets Initiative (SBTi).
3. Identify Decarbonisation Opportunities: With goals in place, utilise IT-specific frameworks and standards, such as the Greenhouse Gas Protocol or the Science Based Targets initiative, to identify areas for improvement.
While these frameworks will provide guidance about industry standards, they won’t give you an accurate forecast of the impact and real outcome of each opportunity based on your data for each plant. For that, software like CoolPlanetOS is invaluable.
The Net Zero Glidepath feature within CoolPlanetOS makes it easy for all stakeholders to visualise their organisation's path to net zero emissions by providing a multi-year view of what it will take for the organisation to reach its decarbonisation goals.
The Glidepath identifies decarbonisation opportunities and prioritises them in terms of carbon emissions and energy savings - whichever is most important to you.
4. Develop an Implementation Plan: For each identified opportunity, develop a detailed implementation plan that should include steps, responsibilities, timelines, and required resources. This planning should also consider potential challenges and include contingency plans to address them.
5. Plan for Continuous Improvement: Decarbonisation is an ongoing process. The most successful decarbonisation practices from one facility can be established and shared internally as the benchmark for all your other sites globally.
This encourages a level of healthy competition between sites to cut emissions rapidly and fosters a culture of continuous improvement in your organisation.
Your roadmap should include regular review points to assess progress, incorporate new technologies, and adjust strategies as necessary to stay on track towards your sustainability targets.
By following these steps, you can create a decarbonisation roadmap that fits within your overall IT strategy.
