One of our core values is sustainability, and with that comes an ongoing commitment to reducing our impact on the planet.
As a consultancy, our business is not as carbon intensive as some, but it is important to us that we eradicate or offset our operational carbon emissions.
Information is our product – and the only fuel we need for that is brainpower (that in turn is fuelled by tea and biscuits – but that’s another story!) Of course, there is a bit more to it than that – we use a lot of specialist software, so we do need some powerful computers and we need to travel to visit sites.
Reducing our Carbon Footprint
Since 2020 we have introduced changes to our behaviour and operations to reduce our environmental impact including:
- Investing in paperless systems to significantly reduce paper use in our offices
- Introducing flexible and hybrid working across the whole company to cut down on unnecessary commuting (and improve our work life balance)
- Encouraging virtual meetings to cut down on unnecessary business travel
- Reducing the physical size of our head office, swapping some dedicated office space for shared facilities
- Introducing a cycle to work scheme and moving all our offices to buildings with showers and changing facilities, to facilitate bicycle commuting
We are now assessing the most appropriate methodology for measuring our whole carbon footprint to a recognised standard. In the meantime we are measuring and reducing our carbon emissions from the following areas:
- Paper use
- Business travel
- Office energy consumption
(See below for more information)
These are only the first steps towards our eventual goal of becoming a carbon neutral business. Whilst we continue further reducing our emissions, we have committed to offsetting all residual measured emissions through a verified tree planting scheme.
Carbon Offsetting
We have chosen a UK tree buddying programme, which pairs planting trees in the UK with Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) approved carbon credits to guarantee the carbon offsetting. The scheme involve plantings trees in schools and other biodiversity sites. By supporting a programme of planting trees near our regional offices in the UK we will also be helping to:
- Provide wildlife habitats & support biodiversity
- Plant native British trees
- Enhance the natural UK landscape
Offset CO2 emissions
Our Ongoing Commitments
As part of our ongoing carbon reduction plan, we will contribute to the VCS Tree Buddying programme on an annual basis to ensure our measured operational emissions are immediately offset through verified carbon offsets. We will also provide all our employees with the opportunity to offset their individual emissions through personal contributions to the scheme.
