The foundation stimulates and facilitates effective dialogue between companies, governments and social organizations about environmental-friendly entrepreneurship that is aimed at CO₂ reduction. The foundation is owner of the CO₂ Performance Ladder; a sustainability tool that helps companies reduce their CO₂ emissions. Every day, the CO₂ Performance Ladder proves its value to an increasing number of industries. Our foundation is responsible for its use, the development and the certification scheme. I am the manager for marketing and communications.
The construction industry has a significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions through the use of energy and carbon intense materials. That’s why this industry can make a huge impact on national climate targets. Research shows that construction companies certified for the CO₂ Performance Ladder achieve an annual 3.2 percent reduction in CO₂. Very remarkable, given how the national average has CO₂ emissions actually increasing. Because of the ladder, company awareness about CO₂ reduction has increased 2.5 fold.
The CO₂ Performance Ladder is a management system that encourages companies to cut their own CO₂ emissions. The ladder has five levels. A company can reach the next level through incremental improvements in its existing process, and through innovations in technologies and methods. The position of a company on the CO₂ Performance Ladder is determined by the highest level on which the company meets all requirements.
A great thing about the CO₂ Performance Ladder is that a company will gain financial benefits from procuring bodies who use the ladder for awarding tenders. The higher the level of the company on the CO₂-Performance Ladder (as in, the more it works towards CO₂-reductions), the higher the award advantage. So in this case, being sustainable is profitable. Procuring bodies give up to 10% award advantage in multi-million euro projects.
There are various ways to do this. For example, a more economical use of fuel, a more efficient way of using materials or by procuring green energy. A company then shares this knowledge with other companies. That’s how companies show a drive for innovation – and not just in their own business, but across the entire chain. More than 2400 companies have a certificate for the CO₂ performance ladder and this number is growing fast.
Implementing ‘the ladder’ has a big effect on business operations. The award advantage can be huge. Strukton, a big rail company from the Netherands, reduced its CO₂ by one fifth down to some 13.000 tonnes per years since 2003 . All their lease cars have received a downgrade in size. The company also distributed train tickets to their lease drivers, with the amount of train related kilometres per year still increasing. One special measure is the self-signalling short-circuit lance, which uses an app to turn the rail on and off from a distance. This saves costs and is much safer. CO₂ reducing measures tend to also be cost reducing, acting as an added incentive. Other measures include green energy, large machines and the recycling of materials/ballast. Using multiple smaller machines to work on the rail results in 35% more CO₂ output than using large maintenance machines.
With the re-asphalting of a ring road in Ireland, a CO2 Performance Ladder project outside the Netherlands and Belgium was completed for the first time. And with success: the project delivered nothing less than 21 per cent CO2 reduction. The Irish pilot was set up by the Irish Green…
Transitional arrangements give organisations two years to progress to Handbook 4.0 The transition from Handbook 3.1 to 4.0 is the largest revision of the CO2 Performance Ladder to date. Certificate holders, contracting authorities and Certification Bodies (CBs) will therefore have plenty of time to prepare for the new handbook. SKAO…
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