The Carbon Trust’s Carbon Management Program: Description and Evaluation of Pilot Phase Results

Andrew Wordsworth, The Carbon Trust
Robert Kwartin and Abyd Karmali, ICF Consulting

Keywords

Abstract

The Carbon Trust launched an innovative Carbon Management program in October 2003 to accelerate and optimize the UK’s progress towards a less carbon-intensive economy. Perhaps the most striking difference between the Carbon Management program and its analogs elsewhere is its focus on corporate change management, with an emphasis on catalyzing senior executives to integrate the opportunities and risks related to climate change mitigation into their core business strategy. The program has no technology focus, nor is it restricted to a particular emission source (such as energy) or site. Rather, the program seeks to influence corporate decision-making by driving each participant through a 5-stage process of evaluating corporate exposure to carbon-related risks, identifying and assigning priority to risk-mitigation actions, developing an implementation plan, and taking specific actions. To support participants, the Carbon Trust provides a set of analytical tools tied to the 5-step process, as well as £50,000 (~$92,000) of management consulting support per participant to assist in the evaluation and change management processes. The key metrics for the pilot evaluation include: participants’ progress in following the 5-step change management process; the level of engagement by senior managers at participating companies; the magnitude of emission reduction actions that win management support; the extent to which companies benefit from the consultants and tools provided by the Carbon Trust; the extent to which carbon management yields incremental results beyond a narrower focus on energy efficiency; cost-effectiveness; and, the extent to which carbon management has become embedded into day-to-day corporate decision-making.