Emma,
Cottingham
Large or small, every organisation counts.
Whether it is through the buildings you use, the vehicles you drive, where your core materials come from or how your team get to work, your business or organisation will be creating carbon emissions. Collectively, these are adding to the carbon in the atmosphere, which is a key part of climate change, so we must all work together to drive those emissions down to protect our organisations, our employees, our families and our future.
Saying Oh Yes! to driving down carbon emissions and taking positive action on climate change will not only help the city, the region, the country, and the planet, there are also wider benefits for organisations that take part.
Our four focus areas
More on the themes
• Green skills and jobs
Having the right skills and knowing what jobs are needed for the green transition are crucial to business and the city's prosperity. This work stream looks at what is needed today and, in the future, and works collaboratively to have the training in place as well as learn from each other’s experiences and successes.
• Energy use & reduction
Brings together businesses and organisations to discuss the challenges around energy use and reduction and share best practice and support real action in the short, medium and longer term.
• Green supply chains and circular economy
Partner organisations will explore how they are working with their supply chains to build up green credentials, how they are developing/integrating a circular economy based on the crosscutting themes of innovation, fair transition and carbon sequestration. Sharing challenges and solutions will be key.
• Travel and transport
Transport (excluding emissions from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) and those that could not be allocated) makes up 36% of the UK’s carbon emissions1 and will need a big transition for fleets and our staff in how they travel. The work stream brings businesses together to look at what infrastructure the city and the region needs, what we can learn from each other’s transitions and how we support staff in making more sustainable travel choices.
• The crosscutting themes of innovation, fair transition and carbon sequestration are embedded into the plans of the other themes.
Taking steps to reduce your carbon footprint now makes real business sense because it can:
• Help your organisation grow - customers, funders and investors are more attracted to businesses who are addressing the green agenda.
• Attract and retain the best employees – This is such an important issue that green credentials could be a reason a great candidate chooses to work for you - or doesn’t!
• Maintain and strengthen your competitive advantage - Reducing emissions can lower running costs, save you money and so protect your prices – ultimately helping future-proof your organisation whilst maintaining a competitive advantage locally, regionally and globally.
Sign up now , join our community and you can connect with the many organisations in our region that are already a part of this campaign. We’ll also keep you updated on progress and give you lots of practical tips, advice, support and guidance about the changes, large and small, you can make, that can really make a difference. Many of those changes may also help you reach new customers and save money too!
Wanting to get started on your decarbonisation journey, but not sure where to begin?
Thanks to the CBI we're able to provide local companies with open access to this special CBI toolkit. It provides advice, guidance and good decarbonisation practice.
You can also use a carbon calculator to identify areas of improvement in your organisation.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has one that enables you to create pathways to assess how we might reduce the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050 and beyond.
You choose your ‘levels of ambition’ for decarbonising different parts of the energy system, and the calculator then shows how your choices impact UK emissions expressed as ‘carbon dioxide equivalent’ (CO2e). This is a great tool to show you different methods of adapting change to make a real impact.
The Carbon Trust has a more detailed version that allows you to create a personalised view of how changes in your organisation can help our broader society. Tip: you’ll need to have details of your fuel consumption, energy consumption and top ups made to air conditioning units to hand.
What’s expected of me and are there benefits to joining? Oh Yes!
There are lots of benefits for you, your business, your employees and Oh Yes! the planet as well.
There’s further detail on what’s expected of you and the benefits you’ll receive in the diagram below.
What needs to happen now?
We’re asking every organisation in the city region to say Oh Yes! to joining with us to commit to engage your employees, drive down carbon emissions, move towards a net zero future and help us lead the way in becoming net zero for the UK. The first step on the journey, is simply signing up and making a commitment to take part. That journey starts now. Sign up here