Turnover up, carbon footprint down
Sustainability, Business
Last year, we calculated our carbon footprint from direct emissions and set ourselves a goal of cutting it by 10%. With our turnover up 17% this year, have we managed to reduce emissions?
We’ve been comparing our carbon footprint. Photo: mrsraggle
Our baseline
In 2008 we worked out our carbon footprint for the year as 1.08 tonnes. This included business travel (on the train, of course), and heating and electricity for the home offices where our permanent staff write and run the business. Polon doesn’t run any vehicles, or do any manufacturing, so this makes up all of our direct emissions. We set ourselves a target of reducing this by 10% in the year ending 31 July 2009.
This year’s carbon footprint
Polon’s carbon footprint for the year to 31 July 2009 was 1.05 tonnes. That means we reduced our direct emissions by 3%, some way short of our 10% target.
Our business travel footprint went down by around 7% — we took the train for all journeys except one, and we tried to walk more to cut back on bus and tube trips in London. Our office footprint has remained the same. We were already using renewable electricity to power all our appliances, and the cold winter meant that heating costs crept up a little on the previous year.
Our emissions are a mixture of fixed and variable actions — our office needs a similar amount of heating and lighting each year whether we’re busy or not. But business travel depends on the work we’re doing — and who it’s for. Some clients like to meet up regularly, but others prefer to work with us by phone, or by email.
When we look at our turnover for the same period, we see that we managed to reduce our emissions by 3%, even though our turnover went up 17%. So our carbon intensity has also gone down — Polon is proof that you can achieve economic growth and reduce emissions at the same time.
Future plans and our 10:10 promise
So where next? Well, a 10% reduction proved to be more difficult than we thought this year. So we’re going to have to work hard to keep our 10:10 promise and reduce our emissions by 10% in time for July 2010.
We’re going to look at more accurate methods of measuring our direct emissions from the home offices (I’m already having fun with my Wattson energy meter). We also want to do more to encourage clients to adopt teleconferences and videoconferences.
It’s clear that cutting a further 10% off our direct emissions is going to be a challenge, but we’ll give it everything we’ve got. It’s the least we can do.
You can read our sustainability policy at polon.co.uk/sustainability