The partners at Walker Wayland NSW, are proud to announce that as of October 2020, the firm has achieved Carbon Neutral Status with the Federal Government Program, Climate Active. 2020 has been an unprecedented year for us all, the current COVID-19 pandemic, the bush fires, and the floods come to mind. These factors have further influenced to act on our intention to go Carbon Neutral . We realise the importance of the triple bottom line, being our environmental responsibility, our social responsibility, and our financial responsibility to our employees, clients, suppliers and wider stakeholders. We find ourselves in good company, as we join PwC as the second accounting professional services firm in Australia to achieve Carbon Neutral Status with Climate Active.
Currently, uncertainty surrounds the future of our environment highlights the important role of businesses to take initiative and embark on ways to become more energy efficient, reduce their carbon output and contribute to reducing environmental destruction. As a full service mid-tier accounting and advisory firm in NSW with over 50 employees and with Trans-Tasman and International memberships of Walker Wayland Australasia Limited and BKR International respectively, we understand our ability to make a change can be achieved by assessing our impact on carbon emissions produced by our operations and to be environmental accountable to become Climate Active Certified.
Carbon Neutrality is a term used to describe “the state of an entity, where the carbon emissions caused by them have been balanced out by funding an equivalent amount of carbon savings elsewhere in the world.
Climate Active is an ongoing partnership between the Australian Government and Australian businesses to drive voluntary climate action, this involves the certification awarded to businesses and Organisations that have credibly reached a state of achieving net zero emission.
For us here at Walker Wayland NSW we worked closely with Pangolin Associates to understand our impact by measuring our carbon footprint.
Our journey to achieving Carbon Neutral Status….
- Initial analysis and surveys were conducted to calculate the total greenhouse gas emissions (known as our carbon footprint) generated by our activity, such as electricity use in the office, paper resources and travel.
- Once the total carbon footprint was known – opportunities to reduce these emissions were supported by investing in new technology, processes or making alterations to operations and processes. Some specific changes that we incorporated included improving recycling, reducing paper usage and holding virtual meetings to reduce travel in light of the current pandemic which is a major contributor to our carbon footprint.
- An independent audit of our greenhouse gas emissions was also performed by Johnson MME
- Any remaining emissions were offset by purchasing wind farm carbon credits. Carbon credit units are generated from activities that prevent, reduce or remove greenhouse gas emissions being released into the atmosphere.
The Walker Wayland NSW Audit and Assurance team led by our Head of Audit – Wali Aziz, who is also a registered Carbon Auditor, can provide Carbon Audit & Advisory Services to organisations to who this initiative may be of interest.
These services include:
- Assistance in achieving Carbon Neutral status in your business
- Emission reduction fund audits,
- Partial exemption certificate audits,
- Carbon neutrality audits
- Advising businesses on climate related risks and disclosures within financial reports
If you are interested in finding out more about your businesses carbon footprint and how to go about reducing it or reaching carbon neutral status, please contact Wali Aziz at Walker Wayland NSW for more information.
