Winkler Partners is today announcing that we have achieved carbon neutrality for 2020 through reducing our emissions, purchasing green energy credits, and offsetting what we can’t reduce.

Running a business has a negative impact on the natural environment and from the beginning we have looked for ways to mitigate our impact. We have installed energy efficient lighting and appliances, greened the office and built a roof garden, captured rainwater, and installed solar panels that provide around 20% of our energy needs.

But we realized that this was not enough. As more people and businesses become aware of the severity of the global climate crisis, we committed to reaching carbon neutral ahead of both the Paris Agreement (2050) and a joint commitment made by over 800 B Corporations (2030) made at the end of 2019.

In 2020 we purchased enough T-RECs (Taiwan Renewable Energy Certificates) to cover the electricity we used that was not produced by our own solar panels. This amounts to 54,000 units of electricity, or approximately 27 tons of CO2e. As in years gone by, we offset international travel, accounting for approximately 50% of the firm’s total emissions, by using fellow B Corp Climate Care‘s carbon offsetting tools. Though international travel was put on hold in 2020 due to the pandemic, we will continue to use offsetting to mitigate our travel emissions once international travel resumes. For the remaining emissions, approximately 12 tons of CO2e, we chose a Gold Standard project based in Changhua, Taiwan, which focuses on wind energy generation and reforestation of 53.8 hectares.

In addition to the above, at the end of 2020 we entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a green energy supplier, in our case, Foxwell Power. Their Tainan rooftop solar installations began providing us with electricity in November and their onshore wind in Changhua County will begin generating electricity in early 2021. We expect this agreement to generate around 90% of our energy needs, with any shortfall met by purchasing T-RECs.

We hope that by sharing our experience, we can encourage businesses large and small to act and reduce their own environmental impact. If you would like to learn more about our energy reduction and carbon neutral initiatives, please contact our Green Officer City Shen at cshen@winklerpartners.com.