Member Article

Eden Project’s Sir Tim Smit KBE to climb aboard the Carbon Battle Bus

 Sir Tim Smit KBE will lend his support and join the UK’s first fully electric ‘Carbon Battle Bus’ delivering the net zero carbon message on Monday 14 June 2021 at the Eden Project at 10am.

Coming straight from the G7 Summit in Cornwall (11-13 June), the Carbon Battle Bus will stop at the Eden Project on the next leg of its ambitious Zero Carbon Tour, which will ultimately culminate at COP26 in Glasgow in November. The tour is organised by sustainability certification Planet Mark, originally established at the Eden Project by Sir Tim Smit and Planet Mark CEO Steve Malkin back in 2013.

99 per cent of small firms recognise the importance of sustainability but three quarters of them (77 per cent) don’t know how to measure their carbon emissions and need support, according to research from Small Business Britain. Recently, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng launched the Together for our Planet ‘Business Climate Leaders’ campaign to encourage small and micro businesses to commit to cutting their emissions in half by 2030 and to net zero by 2050 or sooner through the new UK Business Climate Hub. Currently, over 40 of the UK’s FTSE 100 companies have signed up for it. However, the UK’s six million small businesses make up 99 per cent of the UK’s enterprises, employ 60 per cent of the UK workforce and generate £2.2 trillion of revenue to the economy, so it is crucial these enterprises take action and reduce their carbon footprint.

Aligned with this, on the day at 12:30pm Planet Mark will be hosting an event with guest speakers including Matthew Owen, director of Cool Earth and Dr Richard J Lilley, CEO and co-founder of Project Seagrass. It will also be running a free Sustainability Open Mic session, which is an open discussion showcasing examples of the sustainable initiatives from featured organisations and their plans for the future. Guest speakers include Ed Woolner, general manager of Feel Good Drinks Company, Flexi Hex and Cornish Lithium, who will share tangible examples of impactful projects to inspire their own journey. The event will also be joined by a group of young people from Cornwall’s Carbon Neutral Young Ambassadors programme.

The event will conclude with a networking session, offering participants the opportunity to connect with others who are on the same route to learn and share insights. To register, follow this link.

Planet Mark’s eight-month digital and physical tour aims to address this by taking the net zero carbon message to communities across the UK in support of the UN-backed Race to Zero campaign, the world’s largest alliance of actors committed to halving global emissions by 2030 and achieving net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest. It will highlight how businesses can set their own credible net zero carbon targets in line with Race to Zero’s rigorous minimum criteria and implement plans to achieve them.                                                                          

 The final leg of the tour will visit farms, schools and trading estates on the road north to COP26 in Glasgow, where Planet Mark will highlight and celebrate the steps taken by the business community in tackling carbon. Additional routes may be added throughout the summer.

The physical stop-offs during the tour will provide everything a business needs to know to go net zero through free-to-attend carbon clinics as well as paid-for Net Zero Essentials workshops, which will give participants the tools and knowledge to join Race to Zero with a robust net zero target and an action plan to support it. The tour will also include press events and networking opportunities to help support businesses to get started on their sustainability journeys.

The tour website, www.zerocarbontour.com, displays an interactive digital map, which plots the route of the virtual and physical journey and enable booking onto local events. The website also includes links to book participation in tour events. It incorporates a pledge wall, where businesses can display their commitments to reaching zero carbon emissions. As the journey progresses stories of the organisations involved in the events will be displayed on the website, building up a collection of achievements from across the business community.

 Planet Mark enables companies to make year on year carbon reductions, unlocking huge business benefits in the process, from increased efficiencies and reduced costs to attracting and retaining the best talent.     

Steve Malkin, CEO and founder of Planet Mark, says, “This is a key moment in time, and we are aiming to give energy and impetus to the urgency of tackling the climate crisis. By embarking on our ‘Zero Carbon Tour’, we want to accelerate information and action to enable businesses to set zero carbon targets and implement achievable steps to deliver them. Net zero brings more urgency and more opportunity for organisations to work together to tackle the climate crisis. In doing so, they are publicly demonstrating their commitments that they are organisations and brands that are here to support society and our transition to net zero.  It’s an exciting time of innovation and action with the goal of a cleaner, healthier planet within our reach.”

He adds, “COP26 is incredibly important, as it places the UK at the forefront of decarbonisation to address the urgent and immediate requirement to take action for the good of society and our planet. Aligned with this, Planet Mark is supporting the United Nations ‘Race to Zero’ campaign as part of the Government’s aim to sign up over a hundred thousand businesses to this initiative. Change is in our hands and we want this tour to communicate that as businesses and individuals, together we are empowering change for a brighter future. With enough ambition and active collaboration, now is the time to solve one of the most pressing challenges we face as a generation.”      

The partner organisations and associations for the tour and the grand finale at COP26 include Institute of Directors (IoD), Business in the Community, CHAS, Eden Project, Fully Charged (media partners), Prologis, The Royal Warrant Holders Association, Octopus Energy, HTA, Heart of the City in partnership with the City of London Corporation, Global (media and digital member), Meaningful Business, Garden Centre Association, Westway Coaches, Arrival and COBIS.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by James Walerych .