Reduce your business carbon footprint

Target setting

First, we help you to set sensible targets to reduce your footprint, that are in line with the latest scientific thinking on climate change, and to create a practical action plan to get there.

We ask you to set science-based near targets that are aligned with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C.

Everyone sets “near-term” targets – typically over a 5 to 10 year period

If you wish you may also set one or more Net Zero targets – which define the year you will aim to achieve net zero and the amount of reduction you will do.

How to set Science-based targets

How do we know how much to reduce our footprint by? if we are going to make a meaningful contribution to reducing the impacts of climate change we need to set our reduction targets in line with the overall goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. This is called setting 'Science-based targets' for carbon reduction.

There are 3 types of target that we help you to set:

Absolute target

This is a commitment to reduce the total emissions, in absolute terms, of all or part of your business activity, over a defined period of time. For example you might say,

We will reduce my total footprint from 100 tonnes of CO2e to 58 tonnes of CO2e over the next 10 years.

It's best practice to set a long term absolute target for reducing the emissions of your own operations (also known as Scopes 1 & 2) as a minimum. It's also a good idea to set absolute targets for individual activities over shorter time periods to help drive action and build momentum.

Intensity target

This is a commitment to reduce the intensity of your carbon emissions depending on the amount of activity you are doing. This type of target can be particularly useful if your business is expecting to grow significantly over the period as it may be difficult to reduce the absolute emissions in your supply chain and customer activity. Here are some typical intensity targets:

Over the next 10 years we will reduce our supply chain emissions from 100 tCO2e per £1m of spend to 48 tCO2e per £1m of spend

Over the next 7 years we will reduce the emissions of this product line from 56 kgCO2e per product sold to 48 tCO2e per product sold

Over the next 5 years we will reduce the emissions of this factory from 1.2 tCO2e per sq metre to 1.1 tCO2e per sq metre

Qualitative target

Sometimes it is important to set a target that you cannot put a number on. This might be an important symbolic goal, or something that will encourage your employees, customers or suppliers to get involved. Typical qualitative goals might be:

Install charging points for electric cars in the staff car park

Hold an energy saving workshop

Put up reminders to switch everything off at the weekend

Action planning

Then we help you create an action plan for the next 12 months, containing concrete actions that will:

Reduce your carbon footprint
Improve data collection
Engage your stakeholders in the effort

Prioritise based on impact and engagement

One of the advantages of our detailed report is that it breaks down your footprint by category so that you get a clear picture of which activities have the biggest impact on the climate and can target your actions accordingly.

Getting your employees, customers and suppliers involved in your efforts to reduce your footprint is crucial to success, so it is also important to consider actions that will encourage this.

We help you prioritise your action plan to meet these two goals.

Annual carbon budget

We help you create a carbon budget for the year to help provide a focus for annual action planning.

A carbon budget simply states the total amount of emissions you intend to in the year of your roadmap. or to put it another way, the total amount of emissions you can afford to emit if you are to stay on track to meet your targets.

Carbon Reduction Solutions

We don't provide carbon reduction solutions, so that we can remain independent and give you impartial advice. However we can introduce you to our Trusted Partners, many of whom have specific solutions that will enable to you to reduce your carbon footprint.

View our Trusted Partners

"If we are going to do it, we want to do it properly"
- Tim Pearce, Haines Watts Accountants

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