Sustainability is a catch-all term; an awful lot falls under that umbrella. Where do you start as a company? And how do you do that? 'It is nice that with the CO₂-Performanceladder there is one clear focus: CO₂ reduction,' explains René van der Boon. He is director of Leertouwer in Barneveld.
'We have had solar panels on our roof for almost 25 years and do a lot in the area of sustainability,' says Van der Boon. The family business has existed for almost 95 years and today is a renowned systems integrator in electrical engineering, climate installations and ICT. 'Yet our sustainability efforts were nowhere to be seen. At least our certificate from the CO₂-Performanceladder shows how we score on CO₂ emissions. That is nice for ourselves, but we also want to show our sustainability ambitions and performance very clearly to the outside world. In my experience, that still happens too little.'
Fleet
The purpose of the CO₂-Performanceladder is to create insight into your own emissions. Van der Boon: "For us, this is mainly in the energy consumption of our building and our vehicle fleet. We started by switching to electric transport. With about a hundred company cars we didn't manage to do that overnight, but we made a start and we are growing steadily. Another example: when our central heating boiler needed replacing, we opted for a combination of gas and a heat pump. That reduces both our gas consumption and CO₂ emissions. Furthermore, we put extra solar panels on the roof with which we generate our own green energy for the heat pump.'
Four core values
Nieko Versteeg, marketing manager: 'You can compare the CO₂-Performanceladder with an ISO certification. It involves a certification process that concludes with accreditation. Sustainability is really one of our four core values. We had been working on it for a long time, both in terms of business operations and in the construction chain. The CO₂-Performanceladder offered us the opportunity to have those activities validated. Many facets come together in this label. It is practical and measurable, and makes it very insightful for companies and governments we work for.'
In government tenders, the CO₂-Performanceladder certificate provides benefits. Van der Boon explains: "The moment you tender, you get a fictitious discount. As a result, you are tendering at a lower price, as it were. So that price component creates a different value in the tender. For governments, such a label is a nice tool, because this way everyone is measured by the same yardstick. The sustainability performance of tendering companies is visible at a glance. This makes it easy to include sustainability in the weighting and awarding of contracts.
If more companies join this system, it will contribute to a sustainable future, Van der Boon believes. For us, participation now certainly does not outweigh the costs of setting up and maintaining an improvement cycle. But my conviction is that as a company you really have to want this. And by the way: as a company the tender discount compensates you for some of the investments you make to reduce your CO₂ emissions.
Good example
'It is very difficult to bring about a change in behavior in people,' says Versteeg. 'With the CO₂-Performanceladder, we as a company are taking the lead and setting a good example, so to speak. We hope that this will inspire our colleagues to also reduce CO₂ emissions themselves, privately. That would be a wonderful 'by-catch'. It's all about seemingly small things like checking tire pressure. It saves fuel. And if you do that not only with your company bus, but also with your family car, that really adds up.'
Van der Boon adds, "You can now see it reflected in legislation: on 1-1-2024, the normative scheme Work-related Passenger Mobility goes into effect. From then on, companies with more than a hundred employees will have to report annually to the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) on the CO₂ emissions from business travel and commuting by their employees. Because we have the CO₂-Performanceladder, we already have insight into that, it takes us relatively little work to supply that data.'
Level 3
Leertouwer is now at level 3 and is very happy with that. Versteeg: 'Level 3 relates to your own processes; things we can control ourselves. Levels 4 and 5 go really further, also involving processes in the chain. Of course, we do take certain follow-up steps, but it is not necessarily our ambition to climb the ladder. The bigger you are as a company, the more impact you have. For us, level 3 is fine for now. It means that we have to report semi-annually what we are doing, and that we communicate transparently about our goals. Hence we have included it on our website. We hope this will inspire other installers and supply chain partners. Our main goal now is primarily to reduce our own carbon emissions.
Other labels
There are all kinds of other labels in the field of sustainability. Van der Boon: 'I would also like to mention ecovadis, the global cooperation platform that allows companies to evaluate the sustainability performance of their suppliers. In this way influence is exerted on global production chains, among other things by stimulating eco-innovations. So this goes much further than just CO₂. For example, there is also a focus on the social impact that companies have. We are proud to be registered with that platform.
Greenwashing
Should certification such as the CO₂-Performanceladder be an obligation? Or is it more of a responsibility for individual companies? René van der Boon has his doubts about an obligation, but he does think it is a good way for the government to gain insight into quality and sustainability. 'I would also recommend it to other companies. If you really want to achieve something in the area of sustainability, this is a great tool. The audit made it clear to us how serious this label is; your company structure is also scrutinized; it is impossible to put a few more diesel cars in a limited liability company outside the company, so to speak.' Versteeg, laughing, "The term greenwashing disappears completely from your vocabulary.
