The GCI Platform: An Essential Strategic Tool
🎬 Interview with Thierry Lescuyer, business consultant at Kongsulting
Could you please introduce yourself and describe your business?
I have been a GCI expert since the company was founded—about 18 months ago—and my specialty is providing consulting services in logistics, as I have extensive experience in that field. I was the logistics manager at Technicolor, and I am currently applying that expertise to calculate CO2 impacts in logistics and the supply chain.
I shipped 10,000 containers a year from Asia to Europe and the Americas by ship, plane, train, and truck, and we needed to measure the environmental impacts. And since this is extremely complicated—given the vast amount of multimodal transport involved—we used TK’Blue to perform our calculations, and GCI offers the same service.
How does a carbon footprint assessment contribute to a company’s “CSR” strategy?
Carbon footprint analysis leads to cost savings. Let me give you an example: I have 10,000 containers leaving Asia. If I ship them by air, that’s 1,000 grams of CO2 per metric ton-kilometer; if I ship them by sea, it’s 60 grams. This results in a significant reduction—not only in costs, which is drastic, but also in CO2 emissions. If I take a small business’s fleet of cars or trucks that switch from diesel to ethanol, the company will cut its costs in half since diesel is twice as expensive as ethanol, and CO2 emissions will be cut in half as well. That’s where we see real savings.
The second benefit of carbon accounting is, of course, to advance our global goal of protecting the planet and to meet the targets we’ve set for ourselves globally—an 80% reduction by 2030 and a 100% reduction by 2050—in our carbon footprint. It’s also the company’s responsibility to provide our customers—who will ask for this information, whether in requests for proposals or on a day-to-day basis—with the specific details relevant to individual customers. If we don’t have our own carbon footprint assessment, how can we tell a customer the CO2 impact of the product we’re delivering?
Why did you choose the GCI platform?
I chose GCI primarily because we had worked with the group in the past to prepare our carbon footprint assessments, and because using an outside firm avoids the need to figure out which parameters or indicators are standard and which are not. We’re working with a rating agency that has a measured, reliable, and recognized carbon footprint.
Second, it’s an easy-to-use platform; you fill it out as you go along, adding your knowledge, and you can provide detailed information on the most important areas where you have the greatest CO2 impact. Plus, it’s very affordable, costing between 500 and 2,500 euros—a price that’s unbeatable on the market.
What advice do you give entrepreneurs to help them successfully assess their carbon footprint?
To successfully conduct a carbon assessment, the company that comes to us must organize its teams. It must ensure that these teams will be able to contribute data from across the entire organization.
It’s not complicated data to obtain, but they just need to be prepared to provide information about their electricity costs, internal expenses, travel, and purchases—and once they do, they’ll be able to fill it out very easily. they’ll go to the website and fill in the required fields in a straightforward manner, and within an hour or two they’ll already have a complete picture of their business and what needs to be addressed as they go along.
The advantage is that they can do it gradually.
How much does a carbon assessment cost?
For a TPI company—a business with 20 employees—it will cost 500 euros to prepare its financial statements and register on the platform; and if it has all the data within an hour, it can already fill out a large portion of its questionnaire. After that, there will still be a number of items for which they may need invoices and year-to-date totals to complete the data and get a more detailed picture of their balance sheet.
Next, we step in as certified experts—either at the client’s request or as a recommendation we offer—to spend two hours with them, explaining all the parameters that need to be filled out and helping them enter the information so that they can become self-sufficient as quickly as possible and obtain relevant information promptly. Then, if they wish, we begin a process of setting goals and providing support to guide the reduction efforts alongside their teams.