Before founding CarbonSense in 2003, Antony Turner made his name in engineering, helped set up the ‘Business & Sustainability’ courses at Schumacher College, which he managed for five years, and also wrote the industry submission on wave and tidal power for the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee.

But despite his success in the commercial sphere, Antony realised that there was more to life than just making money.

“I had a flat in Notting Hill, cottage in the country and kids at private schools. I was jetting around the world doing deals and staying in smart hotels,” he explains. “But I realised there was something else – and I ‘discovered’ that there was a world out there that we were treating pretty badly.”

Last year’s Stern Review made it clear that climate change could have severe implications for the world’s economy. So given his ecological values, how important does Antony think it is to make the business argument, rather than a moral one, when it comes to climate change?

“We are quite candid with our clients that the primary reason to take action is that it is the right thing to do!” he says. “The right thing to do for the planet, and the right thing to do for the business.”

With the Confederation of British Industry releasing a report this week urging businesses to lead from the front when it comes to climate change – and only a week after British Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented plans for the country to become a low-carbon economy – making green pay is becoming something of a boom industry.

“We had a real break two years ago when we won a contract from BT, competing against major global management consultancies and NGOs,” says Antony. “This was to come up with a response to a ‘hot topic’ question for them: ‘What would a genuinely carbon neutral BT look like?’ That report not only questioned whether carbon neutrality was an appropriate ‘end goal’ for a business. We also mapped out in an imaginative way how BT, a few years in the future, could be a real climate change leader, integrating ‘carbon literacy’ throughout the organisation and reaping huge business benefits.”

CarbonSense’s work with BT helped them develop a framework – what Antony calls the ‘carbon journey’ – which now forms the basis of the company’s approach to other briefs.

“A good example was the Honda Racing F1 Team, who approached us at the beginning of the year to help them substantiate the launch of their ‘earth car’,” says Antony. “This was a racing car with no corporate logos and stickers – just an awesome image of the earth from space! This was an amazing opportunity to work briefly with an unlikely environmental champion with a communications idea that could reach many millions of people and encourage them to take significant carbon-reducing action.”

CarbonSense helped Honda F1 carry out a carbon audit of their operation, presenting them with actions they could take to reduce emissions both at the factory and in their logistics operations.

“We suggested policies and actions that could lead to significant emissions reductions with key stakeholders – employees, suppliers, business partners and even catering suppliers,” explains Antony. “But most importantly we encouraged the team to become ‘carbon positive’ by putting all of these actions together, as well as influencing the millions of spectators who watch Formula One live or on television.“

Looking back, it was this opportunity to reach millions of F1 viewers with one message that stands out for Antony – and while the primary focus of CarbonSense is the business community, he believes we at Global Cool are on the right track when it comes to our campaign to inspire the individual.

“In terms of national and international policy my personal belief is that the biggest task human society now faces is to get around one billion people – that is those carbon-profligate ones mainly in the rich parts of the world – to become what we term ‘carbon literate’,” he argues. “This is the issue of our times. We human beings and our machines are changing the atmosphere of our planet. And we are changing it far faster than any natural systems can cope with. We are only just now waking up to the consequences of these actions, which could in a generation or so lead to a profoundly terrifying world. So for me ‘meaningful work’ must be this: helping people to see the problem and then helping them understand their own ‘sphere of influence’ in making positive changes and getting the message to others.”

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