We have recently joined ’The Race to Zero’, a global campaign to “rally leadership and support from businesses, cities, regions, and investors for a healthy, resilient, zero carbon recovery that prevents future threats, creates decent jobs, and unlocks inclusive, sustainable growth. The objective is to build momentum around the shift to a decarbonized economy ahead of COP26, where governments must strengthen their contributions to the Paris Agreement.”
Our ambition is to be Climate Positive from the end of this year - significantly ahead of the most ambitious ‘Race to Zero’ targets of achieving the net zero emissions target by 2030.
After putting in place measures to quantify and monitor the vast majority of our carbon emissions, we will shortly publish our 1st holistic carbon emissions assessment and reduction strategy. This covers scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Where we currently have uncertainty in the values in certain emissions categories, we have followed the precautionary principle and included conservative over-estimates.
In order to meet our climate positive ambition, we will:
Continue to reduce our absolute emissions through ambitious emissions abatement,
Over-offset our residual emissions by at least 5% to ensure that we continue to contribute to efforts that reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases, even as our direct emissions decrease through our abatement practices,
Purchase locally sourced 'neutralisation' offsets, i.e. those that physically extract and lock up carbon from the atmosphere,
Ensure that the offsets we purchase are in schemes that deliver wider sustainability benefits e.g. social and economic benefits to local communities.
We have already taken steps to reduce our emissions which include:
Understand and Monitor our Site Emissions: Installing meters so that each business in our leased building can monitor and reduce their consumption.
Improve our Quantification and Monitoring of Scope 3 Emissions: Using the best available methods, we have quantified our scope 3 emissions in line with the GHG Scope 3 categories. We will continue to improve our data capture to maximise coverage and accuracy.
Procuring Renewable Energy for our Office: in 2019, we switched to a renewable energy provider. We also encouraged our landlord to switch provider for the whole building, meaning that all 4 businesses that share our 33 Gay Street address are also now on a renewable tariff.
Reducing our Travel Impact: Providing all staff with laptops and appropriate video conferencing equipment, meaning that they can work from anywhere, significantly reducing the need to travel.
Driving Electric Company Cars: In 2020 we purchased electric company cars, which are charged through renewable tariffs.
All Staff have Renewable Energy Providers: With an increase in working from home in the Pandemic, all staff have transitioned to renewable tariffs and we are working with staff to track the proportion of energy consumption that 3ADAPT activities are responsible for.
We are continually seeking additional means to continue our emissions reduction journey and will be placing additional scrutiny in areas of our footprint that are currently challenging to decarbonise.
We are currently identifying appropriate investment in local offsetting, with the intention to work with charities such as the Forestry Commission, and The Conservation Volunteers in a manner that not only extracts carbon from our atmosphere, but also provides a range of other social and environmental benefits too. In order to support the net zero aligned offsets market, we will also continue to work with our clients, some of whom are significant land owners on nature based carbon sequestration initiatives with a view to these becoming accredited for carbon offsetting.
In the coming weeks, we intend to publish a summary of our current emissions footprint and associated quantification methods and calculations, along with our approach to reduce emissions over time. So watch this space.
Want to know more?
Having supported organisations such as the V&A and Eden Project on their approaches to zero carbon, we have accumulated significant experience in developing strategies for organisations that actually get implemented. Want to know more about how we can help your organisation set appropriate carbon reduction targets and develop a strategy to reduce emissions?
Please get in touch.