Our carbon footprint for the financial year April 2022 to March 2023

Our carbon footprint for the year was 870,107 KgCO2e.

This was an increase of 11.7 per cent since the previous year, when our carbon footprint was 778,820 KgCO2e and it reflects the opening up of activity after the Covid-19 pandemic.

We remain on track with our longer-term goal of net zero by 2030, having achieved a 48 per cent reduction when compared to our baseline year, which ended in March 2020.

They are summarised below with comparisons to the previous year.

Our energy usage

In 2022 to 2023, our emissions due to energy use were:

• 641,635 KgCO2e from electricity (up 7.3 per cent from 641,635 KgCO2e)
• 31,761 KgCO2e from gas (down 12.2 per cent from 36,190 KgCO2e)

Staff transport and home working

This is the first year since we reopened our offices to all staff after the Covid-19 pandemic.

While the percentage increases shown here are large, our overall carbon emissions remain very small.

We survey our staff each year to find out how they travel to our offices and how often they visit them. We use our expenses system to analyse our business travel.

During the year, our:

• business travel emissions were 11,664 KgCO2e (up 468 per cent from 2,491 KgCO2e)
• commuting emissions were 14,498 KgCO2e (up 188 per cent from 7,701 KgCO2e)
• home working emissions were 121,298 KgCO2e (up 222 per cent from 84,617 KgCO2e).

The resources we used

We separate and recycle our office waste, though we’re unable to measure it. So we’ve calculated our carbon footprint in this area based on our staff numbers and by applying benchmark factors.

In 2022 to 2023, we used:

• 1,522 KgCO2e from waste disposal (down 33 percent from 2,284 KgCO2e)
• 47,729 KgCO2e from water usage (up 12 per cent from 42,976 KgCO2e).

Our supply chain

We’ve estimated our supply chain emissions using benchmark factors that are based on the amount we spent:

• ICT: 279,457 KgCO2e (down 12 percent from 315,863 KgCO2e)
• office services: 51,265 KgCO2e (up 65 per cent from 31,020 KgCO2e)
• furniture and equipment: 3,480 KgCO2e (down 12 per cent from 4,439 KgCO2e)
• communications: 97,470 KgCO2e (up 44 per cent from 67,466 KgCO2e)
• professional advice services: 213,162 KgCO2e (down 51 per cent from 438,354 KgCO2e)
• HR activities: 366 KgCO2e (down 99 per cent from 25,429 KgCO2e)
• food and drink: 1,951 KgCO2e (up 3,982 per cent from 49 KgCO2e)
• building services: 20,046 KgCO2e (no change).