GCX’S own carbon footprint

“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".

The carbon footprint was calculated by gathering data from employees across the following domains; electricity, flights, own car, car sharing, and car rentals.  The largest contributor was flights, mostly due to the high demand of face-to-face training courses that GCX offers in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Windhoek and Durban.
Imperative flights aside, GCX functions in lieu of the environment at all times, and has adopted a few simple but highly impactful operating principles.
GCX are able to breakdown the emissions on a per employee basis to equal 3.5 tonnes CO2e per employee per annum.

Some of the most effective principles adopted by the company have been; allowing staff to work from home two or three days a week, the use of skype for conference calls and meetings with progressive clients, car-pooling as the first option, as well as making use of alternative transport such as public transport or motorbike/scooter/bicycle. The impact of using skype for meetings and conference calls is unquestionable in both a reduced travel and financial element. In addition the office is almost 100% paperless, and only low energy lighting is used.

 
GCX is dedicated to ensuring their footprint is maintained as low as possible and are an example that by incorporating the correct principles into your work environment, the impact is noteworthy.  The education department has decided to translate these principles into courses, and will soon be releasing a Green Your Office course as well as a Residential Eco-Auditor course.

One of the key fundamentals in conducting a carbon footprint is that it is not like solving an equation. The result needs to be managed and maintained on an ongoing basis. GCX are purchasing trees from Food & Trees for Africa, http://www.trees.co.za/, in order to offset their emissions and truly walk the walk they teach and preach.