With the climate chaos that we are seeing, it is clear that we need to do more to reduce our Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHG). Government and business leaders are getting behind the UN Sustainable Development Goals. These are 17 goals which are critical to our survival on this planet. Goal 13 is to "Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts", which is one I've been promoting personally for decades.

In 2008, OpenConcept Consulting entered into an environmental partnership with Bullfrog Power, Canada’s leading green energy provider. Through this partnership, we pay a premium and Bullfrog ensures the electricity going onto the grid on our behalf comes from clean, renewable sources.

More recently, Bullfrog launched a new product: green natural gas. Bullfrog’s green natural gas is sourced from a unique methane-capture project situated on one of Canada’s landfill sites. At the site, biogas is captured, cleaned up and injected onto the national natural gas pipeline. When used, green natural gas releases only CO 2 that’s part of the carbon cycle. No net new CO 2 is added to the atmosphere. As with electricity, there isn't a separate pipeline available for green natural gas. OpenConcept pays a premium to Bullfrog, allowing us to choose green natural gas to match the amount of conventional natural gas we use, reducing the impact associated with our heating and cooling needs.

Like hundreds of other Canadian businesses, we are paying a small premium to see that we are responsible for less CO 2 emissions. We’re proud to reduce our impact on the planet and to choose both green electricity and green natural gas to eliminate our energy-related emissions footprint—in fact, you’ll find their logo on our site and mentions of the work that they’re doing on our social media and other online channels

In 2013, we first learned about Certified B Corporations (B Corp) through Ottawa's Impact Hub. B Corps are for-profit companies certified by the non-profit B Lab to meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. Bullfrog Power was one of Canada's first Certified B Corps and we were proud to join the B Corp community alongside them nearly four years ago.

Being part of the B Corp community, we've been thinking about our responsibility to keep track of the CO 2 impact of flying to conferences and client meetings. We finally calculated our total air traffic. By building a simple spreadsheet I was able to leverage the UN's International Civil Aviation Organization's Carbon Emissions Calculator. We can easily calculate the amount of CO 2 which we are responsible for in the 12,907 km of business air travel. Like many of us, air travel is critical for our company’s continued success, but it is also a huge contributor to climate change.

We wanted to buy offsets for this 1.586 tonnes CO 2 through Less Emissions, a Bullfrog Power company, that sells Gold Standard-Certified International Offsets. Offsets help to mitigate the damage caused by emissions by doing things like planting trees. A better, but more expensive option, is to purchase Green Fuel to see that the dirty CO 2 just isn't emitted in the first place. This year, we chose to buy the offsets from Less as an entry-point to addressing our transportation emissions.

Our goal is to be a carbon neutral business. We feel that this is achievable and something that all businesses should strive for. Being a B Corp helps inspire us to explore new ways to improve and helps us do our part for other Sustainable Development Goals. Being a Bullfrog Power consumer makes it easier for us to reach this goal.