The GCI platform: an essential strategic tool

🎬 Interview with Thierry Lescuyer, business consultant at Kongsulting

Can you introduce yourself and your activity?

I've been a GCI expert since the company was created, for about 18 months, and my specialty is to be a consultant in the logistics area, since I have a lot of experience in logistics. I was a logistics manager at Technicolor, and now I combine this skill to give the CO2 impacts in the logistics part, supply chain.

I transported 10,000 containers a year from Asia to Europe and the Americas by ship, plane, train, and truck, and we had to measure the impacts. And as it is extremely complicated insofar as there is a lot of multi-modal transport, we had used TK'BLue as a company to make our calculations and GCI brings the same thing.

What does the carbon footprint contribute to a company's CSR strategy?

The carbon footprint brings cost reductions. I will take an example, I have ten thousand containers leaving from Asia, if I send them by plane it is 1000 grams of CO2 per ton kilometer, if I send them by boat it is 60 g, we have a significant reduction not only in costs, it is drastic but also in CO2 impact. If I take a fleet of cars for a small company or trucks that switch from diesel to ethanol, it will halve its costs because diesel is twice as expensive as ethanol, and the CO2 impacts are divided by two. This is a real saving.

The second advantage of the carbon footprint is of course to follow our global objective of saving the planet and also to reach the objectives we have set ourselves at the global level for 2030 and 2050 of reducing CO2 impact by 80% and 100%. It is also up to the company to provide our customers who ask us for it, either in calls for tender or on a daily basis, with the details corresponding to individual customers. If we don't have the balance sheet, how can we give a customer the CO2 impact of the product we are delivering?

Why did you choose the GCI platform?

I chose GCI first of all because we had historically worked with the group to do our carbon assessments, and that turning to an outside company avoids having to look for parameters or indicators that are and are not standard. We are with a rating agency that has a measured, reliable and recognized carbon footprint.

Secondly, it is a simple platform to use, you fill it in as you go along and you can detail the most important points where you have the most CO2 impact. Then it is for a modest cost since it is between 500 euros and 2500 euros which is unequalled on the market.

What advice do you give to entrepreneurs to succeed in their carbon footprint?

To succeed in a carbon assessment, the company that comes to us must set up its teams. Plan that these teams will be able to participate in the whole company to provide data.

It's not complicated data to obtain but they just need to be prepared to provide their information on their electricity expenses, their internal expenses, their travel, their purchases and then they will be able to fill in very easily, they will go to the site and fill in the criteria that are asked of them in a simple way and in the space of one or two hours they will already have a complete vision of their company and of what needs to be completed as they go along

The advantage is that they can do it gradually.

What is the cost of a carbon assessment?

For an IPT company, a company of 20 people, it will cost 500 euros to do its balance sheet, to register on the platform, and if it has all the data in one hour it can already fill in a large part of its questionnaire. After that, there will be a certain number of elements for which it will be necessary to have invoices and an accumulation over the year to be able to complete the data, to have a more detailed vision of its balance sheet.

Then we intervene as approved experts either at the client's request, but it is an advice that we offer, to intervene for two hours with him to give him the description of all the parameters to be filled in, to help him in filling in the information so that he can be autonomous as soon as possible and obtain relevant information quickly. Then, if he wishes, we enter into a process of objectives and support to pilot the reduction actions with his teams.