Helping clients reduce their carbon emissions
Over the last year, GHD has expanded its global sustainability and ESG offerings to best support clients in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions – increasing our clients’ capabilities to provide clean and reliable energy, minimising their environmental footprint and supporting environmental protection.
New services we have introduced include ESG-related reporting and disclosures, climate strategy and risk management, and social performance consulting. We continue to bolster our capabilities around decarbonisation, net zero planning and ESG due diligence.
Reaching net zero in a way that achieves significant emissions reductions and delivers equitable outcomes for people and communities will be one of the biggest collective endeavours of our time, and we are proud to be collaborating with our clients to address the associated challenges.
Bruce Power – USA
GHD established a strategy and plan that supports Bruce Power’s goal to achieve Net Zero Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions from site operations by 2027 – making them the first nuclear operator in North America to announce such a commitment. This was achieved through visioning, developing an inventory of historical GHG emissions, establishing a baseline year for target setting, and analysing opportunities to reduce GHG emissions. The multi-faceted action plan identified short, medium and long-term emission reduction measures and offsetting opportunities aligned with existing climate change and energy transition strategies.
Through this work, we have operationalised the net zero goal and provided Bruce Power with a roadmap to be implemented and communicated internally and externally. It will ultimately support Canada and Ontario’s national and provincial targets to achieve net zero by 2050 and Bruce Power’s commitment to provide clean energy in Ontario for decades to come.
Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership – Pacific Islands
GHD developed a zero emissions technical pathway and blended finance roadmap for the maritime sector of the Pacific Blue Shipping Partnership member nations, to assist them with their goal of decarbonising their domestic and international maritime fleet by 2050 which contributes approximately 500kt of CO2e per annum.
We reviewed a range of emissions abatement opportunities relevant to the PBSP member nations. The Partnership members include the governments of Fiji, Kiribati, Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Samoa and Vanuatu, consisting of a total shipping inventory of approximately 12,000 vessels across the region (consisting mostly of small privately owned vessels).
Given the maturity and applicability of a number of technical solutions, our key recommendations included safeguarding the emissions baseline, improving existing fleet maintenance programs and fleet information systems, and expanding the roll-out of low-tech solutions that leverage existing supply chains.
Other opportunities included leveraging the traditional sea-faring knowledge of the Pacific Island nations through wind assisted ship propulsion (WASP) retrofits to existing vessels, and immediately reducing emissions from small vessels by switching from 2-stroke onboard motors to 4-stroke motors.
The study identified a total investment of approximately USD1.5billion would be required over the next 30 years to achieve zero carbon emissions, spread across multiple abatement measures. These short-term measures provide the nations with immediate action allowing other long-term measures to mature and become more economical within the local context.
Sea travel is a necessary part of life for many Pacific Island nations, accounting for almost half of the region’s total emissions. As such, the contributions provided through this project will have significance in the member nations’ pursuit of a decarbonised fleet, and for the health of their communities into the future.
Vontier – USA
GHD has provided comprehensive services to support Vontier on their aggressive climate commitments. Building a strong foundation for carbon management, GHD developed an ESG data collection plan, supported greenhouse gas (GHG) primary and secondary data collection, developed a GHG inventory baseline and created interim and long-term net-zero targets in alignment with the science-based target initiative (SBTi). This effort was underpinned by extensive stakeholder engagement and capacity building that was completed as part of a parallel effort to select and deploy an enterprise-wide ESG software solution.
The results of this project provide Vontier with the data, tools and confidence to drive an organisation-wide climate strategy with an established baseline to measure results. Vontier has aligned its goals with climate science and the methodology defined by the SBTi to reduce GHG emissions at a pace and scale consistent with keeping warming below 1.5°C. We have helped them to ground their climate commitments in science and continue to support them with the identification and implementation of decarbonisation opportunities – from energy kaizen events to renewable energy contracting - to drive progress towards their interim and long-term net-zero targets.
SPC – Australia
GHD developed an ESG strategy and roadmap for SPC Global Limited, an Australian-based fruit and vegetable packing company, giving focus to their ongoing sustainability initiatives and outlining a governance framework to support them on their sustainability journey.
We began by facilitating workshops with a wide range of SPC personnel. Throughout these, we validated our understanding of the current state of their organisation, conducted an analysis of their key stakeholders, identified their important ESG issues, and took a deep dive into their materiality issues informed by what their competitors were doing in this space.
We then developed an ESG strategy and a focused sustainability strategy. While each priority material issue had a set of tangible objectives and initiatives to action, the key recommendation to support all of these was the establishment of an Executive ESG Lead that would sponsor, guide and coordinate all the sustainability efforts from across their business.
In conjunction with the 3-5 year strategy developed, we identified several immediate actions for SPC to improve their long-term resilience. These included understanding what net zero emissions means for the business, beginning to explore circularity across their value chain, supporting their growers in the face of climate change and decreasing water supplies, and continuing to foster a culture of innovation across the business.
By providing SPC with a structured ESG framework to address their materiality issues, we are supporting them to achieve consistency of performance throughout their overall sustainability journey; identifying previously undervalued risks and opportunities for the business that will ultimately have greater impacts on the communities they serve and growers they work with.