In August of 2020 we completed our first formal greenhouse gas emissions inventory report. This covers the period from April 1st, 2019 to March 31st, 2020, and aligns our emissions declaration with our financial year. We also established financial year 2019/2020 (FY20) to be our baseline year and have reported our emissions for the previous financial year (FY19).
Where we had previously estimated our emissions and then applied a 2.5 times multiplier, we now have an accurate measurement of the direct and indirect emissions. We will be purchasing carbon offsets to achieve a carbon neutral status. Given the size and scale of our operations we are choosing not to have our statements independently verified this year.
Key insights from our emissions report:
- Total emissions across scopes 1, 2, and 3 were just under 20 tons of CO2 equivalent for FY19
- This increased to just over 30 tons of CO2 equivalent for FY20
- At our current headcount this equates to 2.5 tons per FTE for FY20, which is effectively unchanged from FY19.
- Our direct scope 1 and 2 emissions decreased, primarily due to switching to a carbon neutral electricity supplier
- Scope 3 emissions accounted for 94% of the total
- Increased emissions from air travel led to our overall increased emissions.
We utilised the BraveGen carbon management solution to help us compile our activity data for our greenhouse emissions report. This not only gives us better insight into the distribution of our emissions, but also provides a baseline from which we can seek to make improvements going into the future.
This is also a validation of the value of the BraveGen carbon management solution. Automating collect data and enabling deeper data analysis makes it easier to spot opportunities for improvement and accelerates positive change.