If you don’t go forwards you go backwards

Why climate protection is innovation

Statement by Tristan A. Foerster, Managing Director ClimatePartner

According to Agora Energiewende, a Germany-based think tank for innovation and development, CO₂ emissions from electricity production in the European Union are decreasing. Also, according to the Institute for Energy Efficiency in Production, a majority of companies in Germany plan to become climate-neutral. These are the good news. At the same time they reveal the weaknesses of the German government's current coal phase-out plan which maintains the outdated structures of a CO2-dependent economy and also provides too little motivation for a transition towards climate neutrality. Yet many companies have long since seen climate protection as an opportunity. Many companies, from start-ups to corporations, are already integrating climate protection into their business models, as the example of the Leaders for Climate Action initiative shows. And they rely on the advantages of innovative and digital approaches:

• An efficient, low-emission or even emission-free energy supply in the company, which is also demand-driven, helps to minimize the CO2 footprint.
• Demand-driven and adaptable corporate structures make it possible to plan emissions and avoid unnecessary ones.
• User-friendly, integrated solutions for collecting emission data enable transparency and traceability for the user and thus also reduce hurdles of acceptance.
• Unavoidable CO2 emissions are calculated and can be offset by the company.

It is clear: Climate protection makes companies fit for the future. It is a means of innovation and progress that are key elements for long-term business prosperity. The transformation efforts needed for it can also be seen as investment protection for their own business activities. ClimatePartner enables companies to leverage these opportunities and has the appropriate solutions to implement them pragmatically and reliably. However, if the UN´s climate targets are still to be achieved, it is necessary that the voluntary commitment to climate protection and the associated transformation process happens much quicker than what is currently the case.

We as ClimatePartner see this challenge as our mission. We therefore offer companies a seamless process chain for collecting and offsetting CO2 emissions, which allows on-demand integration into various IT landscapes such as MIS, ERP or web shops. Hereby, we enable every company - from start-ups to medium-sized businesses to multinational corporations - to efficiently collect, process and evaluate their emissions data and offset them through high-quality climate protection projects. This, together with the identification of avoidance and reduction potentials, is an important short- to medium-term component for comprehensive climate neutrality.

Climate protection is a strong driver for innovation and progress. This applies not only to those companies that integrate it into their business. In a globalized economy, technology providers and suppliers, as well as consumers at the end of the value chain, are also part of climate protection value chain. It brings a win-win situation for all parties involved, as the emissions reduction in the energy sector described above shows. Digitization and IT-based solutions in climate protection accelerate the pace and combat climate change on a broad level. We do not have to wait for political decisions to get active. We can start immediately.