Services

Sustainability Competency & Opportunity Rating & Evaluation

SCORE is a sustainability assessment that can help you determine where your organization is on the road to sustainability and also identify new opportunities. SCORE was developed by AXIS Performance Advisors, in conjunction with the International Sustainable Development Foundation and the Zero Waste Alliance, to assesses organizational practices with regard to sustainability. [More about SCORE.]

Cork Tree Consulting can conduct a full-scale sustainability assessment, of which SCORE is only one part.

Through interviews, site visits, facilitated meetings, and a review of publicly available information, we can provide you a clear snapshot of your strengths and areas for improvement.

This may include an evaluation of your buildings, waste streams, energy and greenhouse gases, chemical inventory, and environmental management system. We customize the approach to each client, but the milestones usually include the following:

• Initial meeting to scope the assessment
• Data gathering (e.g., review of policies, website, etc.)
• Onsite assessment (e.g., meetings, interviews, site visits, etc.)
• Report (includes written report and management meeting to review the results)

Energy and Planning Policy Research and Analysis

This service offers customers a means to incorporate sustainable energy use considerations and/or policies into their operations, be they city or county planning, or private business energy use. To achieve this we include the following services:

• Goal Clarification: To get everyone going in the same direction and to ensure priorities addressed.
• Efficiency and Renewable energy options: We offer our customers the information needed to make intelligent decisions regarding their energy use.
• Transportation, fuel, and fleet analysis: Whether the end user is the manager of a fleet or the developer of a biodiesel facility, we will provide goal-specific analysis to help our client understand key issues, potential outcomes, and next steps.
• Energy policy creation and analysis: We offer consulting services to both private and public entities that are in the process of developing energy policies to identify the smartest ways to use our limited resources.
• Benefit-cost analysis: This service helps our clients identify and assess the values and costs associated with various project options and gives them a means of comparison. Cork Tree Consulting can offer expertise in benefit-cost analysis for:
  • Energy efficiency
  • Renewable energy
  • Waste reduction
  • Water conservation
  • Transportation
  • Sustainability practices
• Best practices research: Intelligent use of resources often involves more complicated issues than a simple benefit-cost analysis might be able to provide. We offer qualitative analysis on the issues of sustainable planning and community development.
• Climate change mitigation analysis: We can help our clients identify means by which they can reduce their emission of greenhouse gasses and help them develop feasible strategies to achieve their climate related goals.
• Climate change vulnerability assessment, adaptation policy development and implementation: While climate change mitigation is a step that cannot be overlooked, in addition to this we offer policy recommendations on how to create communities and businesses that can be resilient in the face of climate change.
• Community economic analysis: We offer analysis of overall community systems to help them identify economic growth strategies that are in line with environmental and climate change concerns.

C3 - Community, Climate, and Carbon Training

Cork Tree Consulting offers what we call the C3 training in which we provide education on three commonly implemented strategies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These training sessions are typically targeted to government entities and non-profit boards but each can be tailored to fit the specific needs and knowledge level of your particular group.

• Community: in which we address community market transformation as a mechanism to increase energy efficiency, push the use of renewable energy, and foster sustainable communities.
• Climate: in which we discuss community climate action plans and community resiliency plans: the philosophy behind the plan, strategies for conducting plans and outcomes one should expect and demand from a plan
• Carbon: in which we go through the workings and implication of carbon markets and how they might affect you and your community