Manfred Kopper

Manfred Kopper is ensuring that Costa Rica becomes carbon neutral through the mobilization of the public and private sectors to reduce their environmental impact. Through an innovative model of calculation and analysis, Manfred shows decision-makers their environmental impact in a simple and comprehensive way, then formulates corporate strategies that reduce and offset these impacts, adding value to the company and improving its competitive position in the long-term.

Manfred has developed an environmental program that has built the first-ever partnership between the private and the public sectors in Costa Rica to ensure the country achieves carbon neutrality by 2020, a goal for the country established by then-President and 2006 Nobel Prize recipient, Oscar Arias. Through these public-private partnerships Manfred’s program has achieved legitimacy and the necessary support to propel his program into a systems-changing vehicle that allows the private sector to not only meet environmental legislation requirements, but exceed them while truly considering the impact of their actions.

The intent of the program is to transform companies from being one of the main generators of environmental issues to becoming part of the solution. To achieve mass participation of the private sector and legitimacy, Manfred implements his program through a business association that grants him access to over 100 leading companies in Costa Rica.

The environmental program developed by Manfred is the only Central American model that allows any decision-maker of a company or organization to measure and understand their environmental impacts in a comprehensive and simple way. The program also gives the most effective company appropriate options to reduce and offset their impact. This program focuses not just on the measurement of greenhouse gases or isolated environmental effects, it measures all factors that might cause an environmental impact within the company or organization. The results of the program can then be effectively communicated to employees and decision-makers so as to implement comprehensive and participatory strategies to reduce and offset these effects.

Through this model, Manfred seeks to turn the private sector into an ally to reduce environmental impacts in Costa Rica and make the country a model for other countries that wish to achieve carbon neutrality.

On a global scale, environmental issues have focused on analyzing, researching, and studying the effects climate change will have in the future if we do not change our environmental behavior. Moreover, studies demonstrate that both the energy sector and business sector are those who most contribute to environmental pollution, as they generate the largest amount of greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, humans currently consume natural resources at a rate which would require 1.5 planets to be stable. If patterns continue, by 2050 humans will be consuming at a rate that requires 2.3 planets to survive, causing a complete imbalance.

While the issue has gained momentum in recent years, the business sector’s efforts to minimize its environmental impact have been isolated, while the government has failed to achieve optimal and comprehensive regulation that requires the sector to reduce and offset these impacts.

Although Oscar Arias set the goal of carbon neutrality for Costa Rica by 2021, progress has been slow, as companies and governments have failed to collaborate, and global efforts like the Kyoto Protocol have failed to permeate locally to minimize the nationwide impact on the environment.

Moreover, there have been few initiatives that have established the role businesses can play in helping the nation to meet this goal through managing their environmental impacts in a comprehensive, effective, and understandable way. The initiatives that have attempted to address this issue lack integral visions—leaving out key factors such as the government and other businesses. Or, are expensive and completed through consultations that yield highly technical information and do not involve staff in the solution. This results in environmental impact reduction programs that are not accessible to any industry and have low adoption levels.

Likewise, the proliferation of certification initiatives or environmental management systems have failed to meet their goals, because they do not have a clear and systematic methodology which, in turn, creates uncertainty in the sector. This, coupled with their high cost to the companies, has hindered the process of change in the private sector.

If the private sector continues to fail to take action and environmental development continues to advance disjointedly and through isolated actions, it will be difficult to create a breakthrough in the solution to the serious environmental problems facing us today.

Considering that the business sector is one of the most prolific generators of pollution in the world, the sector stands as one of the most important actors in environmental issues globally. However, mobilizing the sector in isolated actions will not have the desired impact needed to reduce their overall impact. This necessitates the public sector to add their support, guidance, and regulation to achieve systemic change and permanence throughout the sector. For this reason, Manfred has taken Costa Rica’s position as a leader in biodiversity, its environment, and its commitment to become carbon neutral by 2021. He introduced the Eco Empresarial Efficiency Program, which aims to transform companies from being one of the main perpetuators of environmental problems to some of the key actors in the creating a global solution. Eco Eficiencia Empresarial Working Group is a collaborative platform that Manfred created, a community of private and public companies and organizations that believe in the importance of conserving the environment and reducing their environmental impacts. Manfred has designed friendly and practical tools to enable companies to understand, measure, reduce, and compensate for their environmental impacts. Businesses meet once a month under Manfred’s organization to share best practices and learn from others’ experiences to minimize the private sector environmental impact learning curve, minimize the costs of implementation, and obtain better impact. This collaborative platform and its tools have been so innovative that Global Pact selected it as one of the most important environmental projects for Latin America in the Rio+20 Corporate Forum 2012.

Based on Eco Eficiencia Empresarial’s experience, the majority of participating companies have the desire to better understand and manage their environmental impacts. Nevertheless, they know neither how to go about doing so, nor how such strategies can integrate into their corporate strategies. Often solutions exist, but are impractical and not user-friendly. Through his discussions with business leaders, Manfred has found that current tools and methodologies are too robust, overwhelming, and do not reach decision-makers. Eco Eficiencia Empresarial solves this issue and that is the real value provided. This is why the number of companies participating is increasing as well as the positive environmental impact that they are achieving.

Manfred’s program has as its very foundation a public-private partnership in which the Costa Rican government guarantees the environmental certification of Eco Empresarial Efficiency and works in the management and improvement of environmental laws and regulations. On the other hand, the private sector is involved through a business association, like a chamber of commerce, to which more than 100 of the most important companies in Costa Rica are willing to implement the program.

The businesses and government entities, along with other actors, such as MINAE, Address Climate Change, Ecological Blue Flag Program, Costa Rican Accreditation, Holcim-Apascom, and INTECO meet monthly in workshops to advise the environmental committees that have been formed within the Eco Empresarial participating companies to make the best decisions to reduce and offset their environmental impact.

In addition to workshops, Eco Empresarial Efficiency program was designed as a friendly, practical, and simple tool that integrates environmental impact measurement tools that have been recognized as international best practices for companies to measure, understand, reduce and offset their environmental impacts while establishing a common language around the issue. The program also has an online, open source platform that allows for the free sharing of best practices, business strategies, and materials that help improve the measurement of environmental parameters like, water, wastewater treatment, energy consumption, the use of fossil fuels, the management of substances that deplete the ozone layer, and more. The platform currently has more than 45 active businesses working to lower their environmental impact and to lower their learning curve and reduce the cost of implementation of environmental best practices.

To date, dozens of companies are implementing the Eco Empresarial Efficiency Program with incredible results. These savings represent 45 Olympic pools of water, equivalent to 0.09 percent of the total water consumption in Costa Rica; in energy, the businesses have managed to reduce by 33,996 tons of CO2 produced by the equivalent of that generated by more than 6,000 cars, or the amount of pollution generated by more than 15,453 Costa Ricans in a year through the use of fossil fuels. These savings not only reduce environmental impact, but also represent savings for companies, creating a win-win situation that encourages other companies to join this effort. Additionally, more than 200 environmental committees have been formed, over 300 people have been trained on ways to reduce environmental impact—which results in a multiplier effect in other areas such as their homes, Eco Empresarial Efficiency has developed over fourteen training manuals online, and shared over forty reduction initiatives through the electronic platform that has more than 5,500 comments.

The Eco Empresarial Efficiency Program has been so successful that it is being replicated through similar business associations in Central America, including Panama, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. In 2013 it was implemented in seven countries, each of which are attempting to manage a public-private partnership, similar to that in Costa Rica, which recognizes the effort to develop the business sector in the management of their environmental impact. In five years the program will be fully replicated in twenty countries, including Japan and some European countries. In the future Eco Empresarial Efficiency plans to train operations personnel to use the tool in other countries via an e-learning platform.

While the sustainability of the program so far has depended on the economic contributions of international organizations and funds from national and international foundations, in the future, Eco Empresarial Efficiency will diversify its funding sources through the billing of project participants who will have to provide 2 to 5 percent of their environmental savings, plus the charge for training services and a contribution fee from business associations that wish to implement the program.

In this way, Eco Empresarial Efficiency and Costa Rica will serve as catalysts to create a global movement in which companies make carbon neutrality a top priority in their business plans. Manfred’s project has the potential for high social impact since he works through multisector teams. Within these teams he involves government with a commitment to staying carbon neutral, business associations with a commitment that businesses adopt impact evaluation and eco-efficiency metrics, and foundations and local or international organizations, like Avina, to push the project forward in its early stages of implementation. Rather than having a consultant “knock on the door” of each business, Manfred’s strategy becomes more holistic and regional in reducing environmental impact.

Manfred’s parents showed unwavering support for him to pursue whatever idea or project he wanted to undertake. From a young age he showed a keen interest in environmental issues. Manfred later studied at EARTH University, where he was transformed into the person he is today. After his sophomore year, he immediately collaborated with his university to begin sustainability initiatives.

Manfred then started KYC Products, S.A., an export agribusiness focused on the development of innovative food products with a commitment to sustainable development. KYC Products was awarded “Most Innovative” product by the Financial, and was awarded “Innovative Company” by the Chamber of Commerce, Costa Rica. The business model of KYC Products then got the attention of prestigious universities who visited, including UCLA Anderson School of Management, Cranfield University, University of Illinois, INCAE Business School, EARTH University, and La Salle University.

Manfred has started other programs, such as a program to hire single women, a support and training program for small farmers in the “Good Agricultural Practices and Traceability” program, and a worm-farming program that processed 100 percent of organic waste produced in its production plant.

Manfred has developed an environmental and social conscience from his training and experience. His mission is to change the paradigm of how to do business in a sustainable manner, mobilizing the public-private sectors, and seeking sustainable development for his country and the world.