If you’re wondering what your organization can do to improve it’s sustainability and climate resilience, then keep reading. This blog is for you!
The Green Audit
Simply put, a Green Audit is a sustainability audit that assesses an organization’s climate impact, and identifies opportunities to become more sustainable and climate resilient. This is done through six areas of impact:
What happens during a Green Audit?
Green Audits come in different shapes and sizes, but a typical one usually looks something like this:
1. Initial Presentation – This first presentation acts as a primer for the rest of the Green Audit by talking about the issues of climate change, what can be done, and what the Green Audit process looks like. All staff are welcomed and encouraged to attend! Afterwards, staff that wish to get more involved with the Green Audit can volunteer to be a part of the Earth Team.
2. Earth Team – The Earth Team is made up of four to six staff who volunteer to be directly involved with the Green Audit by attending sessions and helping to build the climate action plan. One of the Earth Team members will act as a contact person between Green Action Centre and the organization. Green Action Centre will request information and schedule Earth Team sessions through the contact person.
3. Assessments – Green Action Centre will conduct assessments based on the six areas of impact. Assessments include a building energy analysis, waste audit, and transportation survey.
4. Earth Team Sessions. There will be five sessions with the Earth Team:
Sessions 1, 2, and 3: Global to Local Information, Assessment Analysis, and Idea Analysis
The first three sessions discuss the six areas of impact in detail:
- Each session begins with a presentation that evaluates the area of impact from a global to a local context. The presentation includes a discussion of the completed assessments of the organization
- Sessions end with Green Audit facilitators proposing climate actions to the Earth Team. Together, they decide which climate actions would work best for their organization.
Session 4: Ranking Actions
In the fourth session, all the actions from the first three sessions are ranked based on certain criteria:
- Cost
- Time Required
- Complexity
- Earth Team Subjective Rating
- GHG Emission Reductions/Energy Savings OR Resource Conservation
- Environmental Culture
Once all the actions have been ranked, the Earth Team decides on their implementation timelines.
Session 5: Climate Action Plan Presentation
Between the fourth and fifth sessions, Green Audit facilitators will compile all the actions into a climate action plan. During the fifth session, the plan will be presented to the Earth Team where they provide questions, comments, and feedback. Afterwards, Green Action Centre staff make final edits to the plan based on Earth Team feedback, and send out the completed climate action plan.
5. Implementation of the Action Plan – This final step relies on the Earth Team. Their job is to implement the actions outlined in their organization’s new climate action plan. At this point, Green Action Centre will be out of the picture, but if any questions come up we are a call away!
Interested? Go check out our webpage or email us at greenaudits@greenactioncentre.ca for more information!
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