The standard has been designed by Business Support Solutions, who work in partnership with the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce.
It aims to offer companies a user-friendly approach to cutting carbon emissions with the development of the specially designed procedural standard.
Pennine took part in a pilot programme which is now being rolled out to other businesses following its success.
“We all need to contribute towards reducing our carbon footprint,” said Pennine’s Managing Director Andrew Roberts. “This may be an easier issue to address in our personal lives, but as businesses we also need to take a responsible approach.”
Using the standard as a starting point, companies are able to plan and effect a series of actions that will save carbon emissions and energy, creating cost savings in the process. In addition, companies’ adherence to this standard is capable of being independently verified.
“We have been working closely with Business Support Solutions towards achieving the Carbon Action Standard,” said Pennine’s HR Manager Ann Barnes. “The process started with our own carbon footprint, which was calculated using a software-based system.
“This enabled us to identify those emission sources that would be the subject of our carbon emission reduction actions, ranging from the development of monitoring activities for energy usage at head office through to our ‘Green Fleet’ policy.
“We are now seeing the benefit of these actions and, by passing an independent audit, we have demonstrated not only compliance with the standard but also our commitment to continue to find ways of reducing emissions, not only for ourselves but also for our clients.
“We have found the process to be motivating and of cost benefit to our business. It now forms part of our overall business objective,” added Barnes.