5. Multi-criteria Decision Aid (MCDA)
6.4 Similarities in Climate Change Response Initiatives
6.4.2 Adaptation and Operational Efficiencies
Green-inspired operational efficiencies (known as green productivity) is introducing new business models and practices where resource productivity and cost-consciousness are key drivers. By practicing the tenet of ―reduce, reuse, recycle, dispose‖, companies are realising cost savings in areas such as materials and energy, thereby increasing the efficiency and productivity of their organisations (Orsato, 2006) while reducing their climate change impact.
Porter and van der Linde (2007) found that green-driven operational efficiencies have a greater impact on both the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and increasing cost-competitiveness, and have better chances of success for companies in industrial markets with high levels of processing, waste generation and/or by-products, such as the food and beverage industries.
Green productivity integrates productivity improvement with climate change mitigation and is applicable across businesses and industries (Dow & Downings, 2011).
Being ‗lean and mean‘ is playing an important role in business today, but requires a combination of new thinking and the capitalisation of new technologies (Porter & Kramer, 2006). Optimising and streamlining operations is crucial in reducing operational expenditure and improving customer satisfaction. By following a well-structured asset/equipment replacement strategy, companies are ceasing opportunities to increase integration and efficiencies and enable greater
automation (Carbon Trust, 2010). Businesses are finding opportunities to replace out-dated equipment and technologies with ―climate-friendly‖ technologies. Applying efficiency measures in energy, materials and water is improving the use of natural resources and fossil fuels, thus reducing emissions and easing the pressure on such resources.
Energy Efficiency
Both companies are looking at green-inspired operational efficiencies; however the scope of activities and the value of the initiatives are vastly different. Both companies have instituted low-cost energy efficient initiatives such as energy-efficient lighting in their buildings. There is also conscious effort among the employees to practice energy efficiency in such actions as switching off lights, paperless offices etc. For example, two ATNS executives said that:
―Even on a smaller scale I think we are doing quite a lot of things. If you had met us when we were in Isando, each office had a little kettle to boil water for coffee, but now everything has been centralised.‖
―I have stopped. Like I said, you have to live it. I wanted to buy another car but then I had to drop and squash that idea fast. It was a fuel guzzler.‖
On the operational side, ATNS is taking steps to improve energy consumption through fuel consumption, fuel-efficient vehicles, heating, lighting and air-conditioning systems specifically those used in their Control Centre:
‖The fleet has always been maintained with very fuel-efficient vehicles… but being technically minded as engineers, we understand fuel consumption, we understand usage and we always looked at the figures and the specifications of these vehicles… and it always turned out that we bought the most fuel efficient vehicles.‖
‖For the buildings generally, the bigger buildings, the Operational Centres, the Control Towers, the Control Centres – it‘s all about electricity usage; it‘s about heater usage, it‘s about air- conditioning usage….. A lot of the electronic equipment that the controllers use has to be maintained at a specific temperature. So there, all we can look at is more efficient air conditioning systems. They are quite old; they have been installed quite a few years ago so perhaps another initiative is to review them to see how they are impacting our carbon footprint, how they are creating consumption and perhaps adjust it accordingly, getting more modern systems.‖
And one of the Tongaat Hulett executives said:
―My sense is that whatever we do; there are some efforts and initiatives which are on purpose taken to address the climate change issue, for example, the motion sensors and lighting that was purely for us to be green. So there are a few that are done specifically to tackle climate change and to be more environmentally sustainable.‖
Business Travel and Transportation
Whilst the motivation for carbon reduction in employee travel and transportation are different for the two companies, both entities are consciously reducing the amount of business travel.
ATNS is consciously embarking on an initiative to reduce business travel due to the understanding that travelling constitutes a big aspect of their carbon footprint. They are also approaching the same issue from business efficiency and cost reduction perspectives:
―Interestingly there is an initiative which I and some guys from Marketing and Communications have actually embarked on regarding business travel and transportation… Regarding conferences, meetings, workshops overseas, what we are trying to do is that in a year we want to, not limit per se. We want to choose and prioritise the conferences and workshops that we really need to attend as part of the global community.‖
The other executive agreed and added:
―Instead of having a 100 where people are just going… whether they are bringing back business intelligence into the company or it‘s just for their own benefit… Things like that. That‘s number one. Number two, we also have a Carbon Emissions Calculator. You put your flight miles, then you are able to say in total to reduce this, this is what we used to have, also for your income statement, obviously you know how much you spent on travel. You work that in tandem with the Calculator and say now you are working towards targets and say we are going to reduce it by this much and obviously you are going to see a cost saving as well.‖
On the transport for service and maintenance, one of the executives said:
―What the guys do now is they will typically have sites all over the countryside and they will go to specific sites for preventative maintenance, for corrective maintenance and there are certain routes that one can take and you can do maybe two or three different maintenance activities on the same trip. Instead of driving back a different person another time, we have got initiatives of cross-training some of the people so they understand each other‘s sites and they will then go to the different sites on the same trip and we are saving them two or three trips over a month.‖