Global Carbon Exchange South Africa

With big business fast recognising the benefits of addressing and enhancing their triple bottom line performance, many small businesses struggle to understand the business case going down the sustainability road. This is based on the misguided belief by small business owners that their carbon footprint is insignificant and therefore any action taken to mitigate this impact would be seemingly meaningless in the greater scheme of things and would go unnoticed.
Besides the fact that the aggregate impact of the total number of SME’s  in South Africa is actually a massive contributor to the country’s total carbon footprint, a massive opportunity does exist for these companies to unlock their eco-advantage by weaving sustainability into the fabric of their business.

A wise person said that “every ocean begins with a drop of water”, which is another way of saying that even small steps are progress if taken in the right direction, according to Ed Gluckman MD at GCX.
“A shining example of this truth is the journey that many companies embark on to gain their ‘eco-advantage’, which I define as a company’s opportunity for growth and profitability through a focus on environmental sustainability,” he adds.  

“We have a footprint!!!!” boasts GCX after concluding their baseline footprint with an incredibly low total of 56.2 tonnes CO2e for 2009. Since conducting a carbon footprint for their first ever South African client, St Elmo’s in 2008 GCX had been in a position of ‘the cobblers child never has shoes’ but can now act as inspiration to their clients and the market place alike. CEO, Kevin James, comments that, "GCX is proud of the fact that we have been able to keep the impact of our commercial activities on the environment down to a minimum as it is critical to be able to lead by example when addressing the impact of our clients businesses on the environment".

GCX’s new Residential Eco-Auditor course will be launched in September this year and is the first of its kind in the country. Once completed, learners will have the skills to convert any home into an efficient, low impact, cost effective household and will be able to identify solutions across all areas of sustainability.

The course is filled with practical exercises and examples and the topics are as follows: Energy – Heating and cooling, Lighting, Appliances, Hot water systems, Pools and spa’s; Water; Waste Management; Domestic Contaminants; the Eco-audit and an introduction into renewable energy.

Global Carbon Exchange is the official local partner to Do-inc and Lemnis Lighting for the LED retrofit programme that will be used as one of the carbon offset projects for the FIFA World Cup 2010.

“This is a watershed project for GCX and we are proud to be associated with the World Cup 2010 in South Africa while being amongst the first South African carbon project initiators to undertake a programmatic CDM project”, said GCX Director Kevin James.

GCX MD Ed Gluckman, was interviewed on the importance of energy efficiency in greenhouse gas emissions mitigation by Trading Carbon, the world’s leading carbon market magazine. This special report highlights energy efficiency as being a low cost area for greenhouse gas emissions mitigation and explores why energy efficiency doesn’t feature high on the carbon market agenda. Read the article here.