Carbon footprinting must be at the heart of management's concerns
🎬 Interview with Hervé Puteaux, CEO of JPA International Group
Can you introduce yourself and your activity?
My name is Hervé Puteaux, I am in charge of the JPA International network which is an auditing, accounting and consulting network present in 85 countries and I represent more particularly the worldwide and French structure which is based in Paris and which manages about thirty firms in France.
Why are you interested in carbon footprinting?
I can't imagine not being interested. In any case, to know exactly what we are talking about, I believe that it is a question that is of interest today, not only among managers, but also in the whole ecosystem, our employees, our suppliers, and our customers are sensitive to these subjects, despite the fact that there are still many unknowns about what it represents, how it works, and what we should do with it.
By definition, I think that the least we can do intellectually is to go there, to see how it's done, to see what use we have of it. And then to be able to convey the message of development in relation to all the interest that it can represent.
Can we say that a carbon footprint is a profitable investment?
So is carbon footprinting a worthwhile investment? Yes, without a doubt. I would certainly be a little less precise on the subject, but we cannot do without it today.
The realization of the carbon footprint and then of the action plan of reduction, are imposed at the same time in the daily life of some and others, it is an operation which is imposed in the economic activity and in particular in the public economic activity, since without carbon footprint the public order will become anyway inapplicable for many companies.
Then it is essential for all the relations we can have with the teams, the employees, the whole ecosystem of the company because it is a must, once again in relation to our habits, our margins of progress, and the way in which we must make our behaviors evolve and our systems of functioning of the companies.
Do you advise and support your clients in the preparation of their balance sheets?
So we have to support them, to get the message across, to make the different audiences aware of these issues. Afterwards, yes, we must necessarily accompany these audiences because ultimately the data that must be processed in the context of a carbon footprint are data that we know but that we do not record.
Let me give you a simple example: what are the home-work distances of all the teams in a company? We don't know at a given moment. There is no way to take a census in companies that would allow us to do this. We know very well where employees live, how they get to work, and how many kilometers they travel by mode of transportation. So we have to go and look for it in all the areas where this reflection is applied.
We realize that the data that needs to be identified is not in the systems, or is very little. So there is a need for support simply to organize and equip ourselves with tools that will allow us to identify them, to count them, to feed them in order to usefully feed the platforms and all this especially in a multi-year duration, since the idea of a carbon footprint is not only to do it at a moment T, it is to do it over a long period. Obviously, from there, to use it in terms of management interests
Why did you choose the GCI platform?
For several reasons. First of all, we wanted to select a speaker, a partner who had experience on the subject, who was able to demonstrate in different areas what he had been able to put in place. Secondly, we also wanted to have examples and the best way to do this was to establish the first carbon footprint in our own organization.
This allows us to see how things are done and to be able to talk about something we have experienced and seen. Today, we have the feeling that we talk a lot about it but we don't see much of it! So that was one of the triggers, and then obviously to have a speaker who intervenes on all the perimeters (Scope 1, 2 and 3 and action plan) of the establishment of the balance sheet and not just on one level.
What do you tell entrepreneurs to convince them to do a carbon footprint of their business?
I think it would be a mistake not to do so, and that it should not be seen as an obligation, even if there is a regulatory framework, which is going to increase in power. It is clear that in the years to come, it will not be possible for a company to function in its daily activity without a carbon footprint. But beyond that, I think that there is an interest, an awareness that we must have and that managers cannot ignore this information.
You can then take as much interest in it as you want, but in any case, you can't not know this information. I believe that this is the essential element to indicate to managers, to management teams, because this information must be available as if it were personal information, information on a lot of data that affects the company and its environment.
