BP wanted to better understand and communicate the value that carbon offsetting could provide for potential corporate customers. This project particularly focused on defining the business case for offsetting using BP’s non-profit Target Neutral programme. The Better Decisions, Real Value (BDRV) toolkit helped BP to develop bespoke business cases clearly linked to core shareholder value drivers for its existing and prospective Target Neutral customers.

Background

BP set up Target Neutral in 2006 as a not-for-profit organisation. Its website provides an easy way for drivers to learn how to reduce their carbon emissions by changing behaviours and to offset their residual emissions on a non-profit basis. People can join Target Neutral as individuals, and companies can also sign up to offset the carbon emissions of their vehicle fleets or operations.

Through the BDRV project, BP sought to get a clearer understanding of the benefits companies could gain from partnering with Target Neutral. The main project focus was to identify the different ways that carbon offsetting with Target Neutral could deliver against these companies specific objectives, while adding value by supporting core shareholder value drivers.

What did we do?

BP selected two current or potential corporate customers, and researched how individual business cases of Target Neutral could apply to them. With support from BP’s commercial team and strategic account managers, they used the BDRV Pathways tool to consider the variety of commercial benefits from carbon offsetting and how they supported shareholder value drivers. The Entry Points tool also helped them to engage colleagues within BP, and build a common language around these issues. These tools are both available at:
http://www.forumforthefuture.org/project/better-decisions-real-value/ove....

The research found that a clear competitive advantage case applied in both cases, and one core value driver was to enhance reputation. Building a business case that strongly links reputation to commercial advantage is much more appealing for potential partners. Other benefits included pre-empting an emerging issue by being a first mover in the offsetting space, and improving employee motivation and retention by being a best in class player.

How did BP benefit from the project?

The BDRV toolkit helped BP to understand and define the value of offsetting with Target Neutral for companies in different sectors in a compelling way. Using the partners’ own business language and being able to show commercial advantage when presenting the business case for offsetting was very beneficial, particularly as many people fail to link sustainable initiatives to the bottom line. By making that connection for them, BP was able to show how Target Neutral could add real value.

How did this project inform the development of our BDRV toolkit?

This project illustrated how many of the numbers behind sustainability issues are much ‘softer’ than decision-makers are used to. At the start of the project, the team were keen to get hard numbers to back the business case. Through the process, commercial account managers became more comfortable with a softer business case linked to shareholder value drivers, where further work can help to quantify the offer in more detail.

We also learnt that business cases that are convincing at corporate level, such as attracting the best people, can be difficult to bring into decisions made within specific departments. For this reason, the BDRV Foundations tool sets out the types of business case that work best at different levels of an organisation.