A key aim of the project is to enable employees in Toronto businesses identify and analyze energy-guzzling practices, and then pursue change.

ITBusiness.ca: Brian Jackson

A joint initiative by environmental consultancy, Zerofootprint Inc. and the City of Toronto will use social networking tools to fight climate change on a massive scale.

A key aim of the project is to help employees in Toronto companies identify and analyze energy-guzzling practices, and then pursue change.

Torontonians will soon be able to join a city-specific version of Zerofootprint’s Web 2.0-style site that seeks to foster green consciousness and practices.

The site launches Feb. 26 in partnership with the City of Toronto.

City employees have already been using the site’s greenhouse gas emissions calculator to measure their carbon footprint.

“The idea is to [offer] a granular approach to measuring your carbon footprint,” says Deborah Kaplan, executive director at Zerofootprint.

Companies, she says, can create groups that their employees would join and collectively track their emissions.

Business intelligence (BI) software from San Jose, Calif.-based Business Objects SA will be used to create the “complex analytical formula” through which the group’s total footprint would be calculated.

From there, they can work with the numbers and set goals for reduction.

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