Lots of big companies are making grand pledges to go carbon-neutral (or even carbon-zero, removing historical emissions). It is feasible for a smaller company (that is, businesses that’d never be described as “enterprise”)? Is it worth it? Why do it? How do you do it?
If you're on this path -- or tried to be -- tell me about your journey. What did you do, and what was the outcome? What advice would you offer to other small and medium sized businesses that want to accomplish this feat?
Lots of big companies are making grand pledges to go carbon-neutral (or even carbon-zero, removing historical emissions). It is feasible for a smaller company (that is, businesses that’d never be described as “enterprise”)? Is it worth it? Why do it? How do you do it?
The important thing here is to realize that carbon-neutrality is all about risk management.
If you don't know exactly how large is the carbon impact of your company, you aren't prepared for a risk: that the price of carbon dioxide emissions will skyrocket to let's say 500 USD / tonne, and your company was dependent on the price of carbon dioxide being continuously low. This skyrocketing emission price can and will cause companies to go bankrupt.
Sure, there are companies that claim to be carbon neutral. Usually it's just greenwashing. If you have a company that uses 1 GWh of electricity per year, and decide to purchase 1 GWh of "green" electricity (wind / solar) per year, you are carbon neutral, right?
Wrong.
Firstly, this ignores the fact renewables (wind / solar) produce electricity only intermittently. If your company doesn't stop using electricity when the winds cease and the sun sets, the company is in fact using fossil fueled electricity despite the fact it uses 1 GWh of electricity and buys 1 GWh of "green" electricity.
Sure, you could buy some sort of energy storage, right? Buy enough Tesla PowerWalls. However, the price of battery based electricity storage is sky-high and won't be enough to supply electricity for a two-week long calm period (little wind electricity) in the winter (little sunshine and thus little solar power). To actually implement this small-scale plan of storing electricity, the costs will be so high that your company will go bankrupt just because its costs. None of your competitors is doing this silly plan of buying huge numbers of Tesla PowerWalls. They are financially in a better position.
To actually implement a green energy system that provides just the right amount of green zero-carbon electricity whenever we need it, we need large-scale cheap energy storage facilities. The best of these involve storing hydrogen underground, or alternatively storing both methane and carbon dioxide underground. No battery based system can compete with the sheer low costs of storing huge amounts of combustible fuel gases. A small company can do little to accelerate the transition to such a green energy system.
There are also other forms of hidden risks that could materialize:
So, as you can see, risk management is never easy.
So there is little you can do except to have a good climate risk management plan.
The electric utility might be able to sell renewable electricity to the business. In other words how much renewable electricity the utility sells then relates to how much they buy. To the customer it's just a more expensive bill. Then possibly combine an electric furnace with a ground-source heat-pump.
I didn't mention solar panels because I live in a city that has trees. But I could put two solar panels on a 16' high 304L tube that has a 6" diameter and a wall thickness of 0.120". The 304L tube would sit 4' in a wet-pour concrete footing in the ground. The 304L tube could be positioned exactly where it needs to be positioned. I have priced the 20' long tube, but in standard finish instead of brushed finish, at $2600. I would use the solar panels to charge AGM batteries that run a refrigerator.
