The subject of climate change – whether it is real, and if so what to do about it – has unfortunately become a political issue and a victim of the culture wars.
We are a private company, not a political campaigning group, but we think that it is important to stay informed about global issues of such importance and to align the values of the company with what seems to be true.
Today there is broad consensus that climate change is a serious problem and that the whole world needs to take action to address it. If you would like to inform yourself better, the 2023 report by the IPCC is huge and rather overwhelming but is broken down into sections for different types of readers. We suggest you dip into any parts that grab your attention.
At OP-Training we have made the decision to offer our courses primarily online because this removes the need to travel, reducing the carbon footprint of a training course and each of the attendees substantially. Fortunately, Learning Tree International the company we mostly work for, is a pioneer in online training and has been offering courses online since the early 2010’s.
In the field in which we work studying online makes little difference to the quality of the training because little direct interaction between participants is needed. We don’t need to use breakout rooms or have discussions standing around whiteboards.
In addition to reducing the carbon footprint of courses up-front by focussing on online delivery, we also spend a small proportion of profit on carbon offsetting through the organisation Ecologi, in order to offset the CO2 generated by running the computer servers we need to deliver the courses. The effects of OP-Training’s carbon offsetting contributions so far are summarised here. Ecologi have also provided a helpful blog article on greenwashing here.