The Commitment
The Gloucestershire Climate Commitment makes it easy for county-based businesses of all sizes to take the first step to climate action, making a public commitment.
A public commitment is an important first step to show your employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders that you are serious about your intent and to help hold your business accountable for achieving it.
We are asking all businesses in Gloucestershire to commit to Net Zero Emissions by 2050 at the latest, and to join the “Race to Zero” at the UK Business Climate Hub (for SMEs) or Business Ambition for 1.5°C (for Large companies).
Are you ready to make your commitment?
Thank you so much for making this commitment to the county, the next generation and your business. When you are ready all you need to do is complete the form below.
SMEs
Large Companies
What does “Net Zero Emissions” mean?
To prevent the consequences of climate change getting any worse than is already inevitable, we need to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases to zero by 2050 at the latest. In reality we know that we will not be able to completely eradicate all our emissions, so we will need to also remove enough carbon dioxide physically from the atmosphere to balance the emissions we cannot eliminate. This is the goal that all of the countries of the world signed up to in the Paris Agreement in 2015. We call this goal “Net Zero Emissions”.
Step 1: Reduce emissions
The “Carbon Law” is a good guide to the size of reductions necessary. It shows that, as a minimum, we need to half our emissions every 10 years for the next 30 years. This will leave us with residual emissions of 10-15% of their current value to balance. This will still be a significant challenge, but one that is achievable.
A roadmap for rapid decarbonization (Rockström, J., Gaffney, O., Rogelj, J. et. al. 2017.)
Step 2: Balance residual emissions by removing carbon
Once you have eliminated all the emissions you possible can you need to balance the residual emissions by permanently removing carbon from the atmosphere. Theis might be through natural solutions, such as planting and managing trees, or through technological solutions, which are expected to become more widely available in the coming years.