Consulting service for climate change issues

Hyder Consulting, Renoir Consulting and TFG International have formed an alliance to provide an integrated consulting service on greenhouse gas emissions accounting and analysis, climate change regulation and business improvement strategies for companies and government agencies.

As the federal and state governments move towards a domestic greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS), many Australian companies and other organisations will be significantly affected by such an ETS, most notably through electricity price increases, the acquisition of carbon permits and obligations physically to reduce emissions. In addition, corporations and facilities now face challenging greenhouse gas reporting and regulatory requirements under the Carbon Disclosure Project and the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act. The total combined costs may add a considerable financial burden to company operations. However, this may be eased considerably by adopting effective emissions and permit management strategies and introducing business improvement measures within the company. These measures would typically aim to recover a significant portion of, or exceed, the annual burden arising from its ETS, or associated costs.

The integrated consulting services aim to: diagnose clients’ ETS liabilities (and possibly other climate change implications for its operations such as reporting and other regulatory impacts); maximise their strategic position through optimal use of any carbon credits trading scheme; and identify the means to offset ETS costs and achieve those savings through emissions abatement and the implementation of business improvement measures.

Hyder Consulting assesses how the ETS and associated measures may impact upon a company, and advises the client of the specific impact on its business of the introduction of a domestic greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme and associated requirements such as reporting, and alerts it to the more general climate change implications for the client as well as the opportunities for risk management and carbon credit generation and management activities both in Australia as well as internationally under the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol.

Renoir Consulting identifies relevant areas within the client’s activities for business improvement, which would lead to savings or revenue enhancements needed to significantly or fully offset the costs arising from their greenhouse gas emissions. It then works with the client, at all levels of the organisation, to implement the measures necessary to deliver these objectives, on a sustainable basis, in months rather than years.

TFG International provides the strategic overview, manages the client relationship on behalf of the alliance throughout the process and administers the individual projects.