South African companies could soon see their carbon-neutral status becoming a far more important criterion than their black economic empowerment rating when tendering for business.

This is according to Gianmarco Lorenzi, CEO of Cleardata, a firm specialising in document destruction and the first such company in SA to attain carbon-neutral status.

Lorenzi this week said while environmental issues might have taken a slight back seat to the current economic crisis, the issue of greenhouse gas emissions and their effect on climate change should be the most important long-term strategic challenge for businesses in SA.

“Empowerment is currently a crucial factor when evaluating local supplier credentials, but I believe in a few years’ time the carbon footprint of potential service providers will play an even bigger role.”

Achieving a carbon-neutral rating is fast proving a competitive advantage for many companies across a variety of industries from manufacturing and retail to specialist sectors like information technology (IT).

Players in the airline industry, for example, recently reaffirmed their commitment to work towards carbon-neutral growth and to reducing their sector’s contribution to global warming.

Lorenzi said: “Reducing a company’s carbon footprint is more feasible than many people realise as all it takes is a thorough analysis of current energy use, followed by the introduction of day-to-day practices to reduce harmful emissions caused by energy consumption and travel.” An example of this was when SA, after reviewing its transport practices, introduced bio-diesel as a fuel of choice.

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