Professional Development 1 – Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Background on carbon footprint responses – Corporate Governance
The Board of directors of Woolworths Market in Australia has the major responsibility towards the Company’s corporate governance. It certainly realizes the importance of it is own corporate governance framework, especially when laying the foundation on areas such as accountability, guiding, as well as various regulating activities, monitoring and managing risks. However, the Board also identifies the necessary need to review annually, the system concerning corporate governance since the best practice changes over time. This particular review directly reveals the Company’s current governance framework, towards the corporate governance principles, and even recommendations concerning the Woolworths Market Governance Council.
The organization carbon footprint simply, means the emission of the sum of greenhouse gases by the particular organization, projects group or an individual. The term Carbon footprint is famous since most of the organizations eventually compile footprint. There is no doubt that, most of these organizations are companies. It should also be noted that, the Carbon footprint is scientifically represented by CO2 (Ferlin ).
Carbon footprint always encompasses two main components. On the primary front, footprint has been defined as a sum of the direct carbon dioxide emissions, which results from the burning of fossil fuels. These fossil fuels are such as, the domestic energy consumption either by water heaters or transportation. However, the secondary footprint is the sum of apparent indirect omissions which are caused by the manufacture and breakdown of numerous products. Other factors could be services or business consumes. There is no doubt that, climate change is considered as a threat especially to the growth of the global economy. Some of the countries such as South Africa have already taken some measures, towards the reduction of the use of fossil fuels. Furthermore, the country has also developed some initiatives that often reduce the emissions of green houses gases. Individual companies have been argued to up their efforts as they play a big role on reducing the carbon footprints of their own operations as well as products.
It is never easy to understand the organization’s carbon emission, since it is considered as both a daunting and certainly complex process. An individual would need a set of skills on both expertise and time. These skills will significantly help to interpret data of the business concerned, as well as ensuring the right emissions factors that should be applied in calculating a footprint. The carbon report has recently created such complexity through incorporating various significant practices. However, the carbon report has also identified the organization standards into a cost effective solution, in order to often deliver a carbon footprint audit report (Gobinda).
The carbon report is certainly a web based offering design. This allows most of the organizations to have a direct access when measuring their several carbon emissions, as well as producing a carbon footprint report.
Some of the principles of that the organization bears include the following;
Most favored nation {MFN}: treating people equally, due to the annual agreement of the WTO, countries have been argued not to often neglect between their trading partners. They should be able to offer their partners with the special favors. These favors may be lowering custom duty rate for some of their products. It should also be noted that, these countries have to do the same to all WTO members (Wright and Williams).
National treatment; Treating both foreigners and locals equally, the countries are also argued to treat their imported and even local goods equally. The same principle should also be practiced to foreign and local markets, as well as copyrights and even parents. The principle of the national treatment simply means treating other trade partners just like one’s own nationals (Wiedmann and Minx).
The Europe’s carbon market is facing a number of difficulties at the mean time, and it is not just environmentalists stressing the issue but so many people around the world. The CEO of shell was once quoted saying “the Europeans Union System concerning trade allowances of the emission of the green house gases was in deep trouble. This statement of the CEO has been considered by so many scholars as direct as any politician who is in the world of bureaucratese.
Reference List
Scalenghe, R., Malucelli, F., Ungaro, F., Perazzone, L., Filippi, N., Edwards, A.C, 2011, "Influence of 150 years of land use on anthropogenic and natural carbon stocks in Emilia-Romagna Region (Italy)". Environmental Science & Technology 45 (12): 5112–5117.
Wiedmann, T. and J. Minx, 2008, A Definition of 'Carbon Footprint': Ecological Economics Research Trends. Hauppauge NY, Nova Science Publishers.
Wright, L., Kemp, S., Williams, I, 2011, 'Carbon footprinting': towards a universally accepted definition. Carbon Management.
Gobinda, C D 2010, Carbon footprint of the knowledge sector: what's the future?", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 66.
Ferlin, NS 2008, Carbon technology, Michigan: Delmar Publishers.
Peter, J S, 2009, Driving Forces Influencing Companies, New York: Vintage Books.
Frey, N. S. 2008, Focus on Gemme Power Systems, Michigan: Delmar Publishers.
Khan,P K, 2012, Success in Management. New York. Bingle Books.
Brion, M., Leary, S., Smith, G S2008, Impact of high Carbon emissions: a cohort study. Australian Journal of Environmental Science,88(4),1126-33.
