We did our first carbon audit for 2022 and we have now followed it up with our second review for 2023. A ‘carbon audit’ may sound like a rather dull topic but it is a critical first stage to understanding our impact on our planet and looking for ways to improve this. If we do not know how we are contributing to global warming, it is very hard to identify ways to improve.
What is a carbon audit?
Think of it as a deep dive into all the ways we use energy and produce emissions. It is like a financial audit but for our carbon footprint. It allows us to identify areas where we can reduce our environmental impact, improve efficiency and assess ways to contribute more sustainably.
Why bother with a carbon Audit?
Our decision to conduct a carbon audit was driven by a genuine interest in understanding our operations better. We wanted to answer some key questions:
- We were curious to see the numbers and understand the full scope of our environmental impact. We wanted some facts and figures.
- Identifying our strengths can help us build on them and recognise what we already do well and easy wins.
- It’s a question our customers and potential employees are increasingly expecting us to be able to answer.
Our approach
We followed the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard for both audits. This seeks to capture all the direct Scope 1 and 2 emissions we are responsible for creating. An important requirement for us is consistency across the years so we can track our progress.
There is a lot of help for companies who want to engage.
How did we do in 2023?
We were very pleased that our carbon output was lower in 2023 compared to 2022.
We had targeted travel in the last 12 months as a major goal, taking the train instead of flying for any events in Europe, continuing to operate as a hybrid company, and offering all employees an extra day of holiday if they took the train instead of plane.
The key takeaways for us were:
- Travel dominates emissions from small businesses
- for a small business with 11 employees, every commute counts. Having the travel patterns naturally change and a couple fewer people driving long distances makes a huge difference
- Scope 2 electricity emissions are trending down, as the UK grid decarbonises (see national grid figures)
- More third-party service providers need to be more transparent about their impact. We were disappointed several of them had not moved beyond the “we plant trees and work from home” mantra they gave us last year.
You can read our full report here.