Wanted: 100 businesses to make Portsmouth cleaner and greener

Shaping Portsmouth is looking for volunteer companies to take part in its ‘carbon reduction’ initiative. Members of the Shaping team and environmental experts will measure each firm's carbon footprint and then follow up with advice on what steps can be taken to tackle it.

The project is part of the community interest company’s Business Climate Action Group, set up to specifically look at ways in which the business community can play a part in creating a cleaner and greener city.

‘Portsmouth businesses produce 40 per cent of the city's carbon output,’ said Stef Nienaltowski, CEO of Shaping Portsmouth, whose mission is Transforming Portsmouth Together. ‘This first initiative from the Business Climate Action Group will start to arrest that by giving small and medium-sized businesses factual data about their effect on the climate. This will be followed by a set of helpful actions they can take to start to reverse this issue.’

The Shaping team will use a Government calculator to work out how much carbon tonnage each business produces and how that compares to others of the same size and in the same sector. They will then follow this up with a seminar, either online or in person, to offer real advice on how to reduce it.

The whole process is expected to take a couple of hours. Any business willing to help in the project should email [email protected] Business Climate Action Group is aiming to help all businesses find affordable ways to reduce their carbon production and will be running a series of projects to tackle the causes of environmental pollution.