Hi BCorp Community!
I am Lara from Forward Thinking Design. We are a small company of 3 people. We are in the interior design, fit out and consultancy industry. Would like to know if anyone has had experience with being Carbon Neutral certified and how much the estimated cost is to become certified for a small business. Or if there is anyone in the community that can help evaluate/certify us?
Thanks in advance
We have just started this journey, we are a larger company so I can not speak to that but, we are using South Pole who are a B Corp to help us with becoming certified.
Welcome, @LaraL! For a small company, I recommend looking into Pathzero to support your climate action journey.
Morning @LaraL 
We (Quiip) use Pathzero and recommend them however they don’t offer certification. Yet.
If you specifically need or want that it does cost quite a bit more. You can look at some other firms who could help like Pangolin or Point Advisory, both are B Corps.
We took the plunge last year and learnt a lot! We looked into Climate Active but at our current size, we found the time commitment (and expense) was going to be too high at this point in our journey. We did however get our Carbon Footprint assessed and emissions offset and will continue to do this every year now. You can read more about our journey here.
https://raisely.com/www/posts/our-journey-to-net-zero
Hi Kara - We (Koskela) used Pangolin, a fellow B Corp, to achieve Climate Active last year and highly recommend them. It is more work than other methods, and the cost mostly comes down to the quality of the offsets you choose, but highly rewarding to get an accurate, detailed footprint. We are now doing Science Based Targets with them too. Probably worth getting a quote from a few consultants and providers to understand the various options and costs.
Hi Lara, I’m sure you have this sorted by now but thought I would reply anyway as I am just new to this forum! I work for Ndevr Environmental and we help companies navigate the Climate Active certification (and we’re a proud BCorp). If you still need some advice please reach out, we’d love to help! Jacinta
Hi Lara
We became carbon neutral and have documented the process in detail in this article, which may help you:
Marty
Great post @martydrill thanks for sharing!
I have heard quite a few companies mentioning https://www.climateneutral.org/ however as they are a US-based company I’m confused about whether their certification would meet Australian standards. (And whether that matters**) I saw that 4 Drunk Parrots certified with them recently – so maybe @Nadee.4DP can tell us more.
** @SarahSannen are you abe to explain Climate Active certification and which companies need govt-recognised certification?
Hey Alison!
I am not sure if there is a specific standard for how assessments are done. My guess is that they have similar reviews around electricity, travel and wastage.
The blog that I put out is more focused on offices, rather than say restaurants and manufacturing.
Regards
Marty
Hey Marty! According to the website, the govt Climate Active one is the “only government accredited carbon neutral certification scheme in Australia.”
https://www.climateactive.org.au/be-climate-active/faqs
What I’m less clear on is whether you can use existing tools like Pathzero or other, like Climate Netural, to gain Climate Active accreditation here in Australia. However it is another expense/process to embark on!
'Tis somewhat confusing, and even more so for the consumer I’d say!
Hi Alison, my apologies for being a little late to the party on this one…
To answer your question yes, Pathzero can help you attain Climate Active Carbon Neutral Certification. Our consultants are all registered with Climate Active and we have their latest emission factors available on the Pathzero platform.
There are many different carbon neutral protocols available worldwide, Climate Active is considered one of the most rigid and that’s why Pathzero has aligned with them.
I hope this helps!
Megan
Hi everyone,
I wasn’t sure if I should post here or start a new post - but thank you to everyone who has contributed above. Its been great to read about how you have approached your carbon neutral journeys, as I’m not sure we are ready to take the Carbon Active certification just yet, but would like to offset our emission. I have a Pathzero demo booked in next week, as it looks like a few B Corps have been using that and recommend it, (plus they are a B Corp!)
I’ve also just had a short meeting with trace (www.our-trace.com/) on their approach, who said they have met with a few B Corps before. Has anyone had any experience using them that they would be happy to share?
Thanks, Talia