1: Go Scope 1 carbon neutral
When looking at your practice’s carbon footprint, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GGP) recommends addressing three ‘Scopes’. Scope 1 is your direct emissions, which for most practices is just a gas boiler. Of course, if your practice owns any vehicles, include their use in this scope also.
You can neutralise your Scope 1 emissions in a few ways. You can simply offset your emissions with a legitimate source (such as Net Zero Eyecare, which funds gold standard carbon offsetting projects that help build a truly sustainable world), or you can consider switching the gas off altogether in favour of something like a ground-source heat pump.
2: Go Scope 2 carbon neutral
This step is all about your electricity bill, which is officially known as ‘indirect emissions’. Over 40% of the UK’s electricity is produced by fossil fuel combustion.
Renewable energy suppliers are increasingly available and competitively priced, so when it is time to renew your contract take a minute to shop around.
Again, Scope 2 carbon neutrality is easy. If you simply cannot find an affordable renewable supplier, then you can offset – although that is an additional cost. Switch to a supplier of 100% renewable energy, and you are Scope 2 carbon neutral.
A zero-carbon supplier, which includes nuclear energy, is also acceptable for accreditation.
3: Go Scope 3 carbon neutral
Scope 3 emissions are basically everything not covered in Scopes 1 and 2. For a practice it relates largely to the movement of people and products through the business. Consider the emissions from your team’s commuting and the carbon footprints of the products you use and sell.
The GHG Protocol does not include patient travel within Scope 3, but we do at Net Zero Eyecare because we will not pretend a practice could survive as a business without a steady flow of patients through the door. Plus, a patient travel survey is a great engagement opportunity.
Once you have got a useable figure for your Scope 3 emissions the only way to achieve carbon neutrality here and now is through offsetting. This will allow your practice to claim Net Zero Carbon certification. You have worked hard, you may as well get some recognition.
4: Carbon reduction plan
Quantifying and offsetting your carbon footprint is awesome, but the sobering fact is that if everyone just offset while continuing business-as-usual we will still descend into environmental and climatic catastrophe.
We simply do not have the space or resources on this finite planet. Reductions in our resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are what is really needed, and you can start to address that with a carbon reduction plan.
5: Plastic recycling
You’re familiar with your kerbside recycling, but there’s been a long-standing myth that optical plastics – demo lenses, ophthalmic lenses, frames, contact lens blister packs, etc – cannot be recycled. Well, they can.
They just require a specialist service, such as offered by Terracycle or MyGroup. Get one of their optical-related recycling boxes in practice and you can receive free accreditation by Net Zero Eyecare as an ‘Optical Recycling Centre’.
6: Go Plastic Neutral
Plastic pollution is an issue with tremendous public attention, and there’s no escaping the fact that optics is a plastic-heavy industry.
However, much like carbon, it is remarkably easy to quantify and then offset your plastic footprint. You are then ready to be certified ‘Net Zero Plastic’.
7: Talk to your suppliers
The six steps above will help you get your own house in order, but the way to multiply your impact many-fold is to talk to your suppliers about the environmental impacts of their products.
A simple questionnaire is an easy way to do this. We can only change the world for the better together.
- You can find supporting documentation, including a free supplier questionnaire, carbon reduction plan template, guidance on plastic footprinting, and the certification standards for Net Zero Carbon and Plastic, at netzeroeyecare.org/downloads.
- Andrew Clark is Net Zero manager at Practice Building.