As a business, we have made the decision to become Carbon Neutral, with our long-term aim of becoming a Carbon Negative business that removes more carbon than it is responsible for.
Sustainability is at the core of our business which is why we want to ensure our business has the greatest possible positive impact on the environment. That’s why we have a two-part plan for how we are going to achieve becoming a truly carbon neutral business.
What does “carbon neutral” really mean?
When we say carbon neutral, we have set our targets high, looking to review, question, and extend the guidance and certification processes that we currently have in place. We will look to collect and analyse data around our footprint as best we can, similarly to our approach on construction projects. We want to go beyond the standards, to ensure our impact is calculated, recorded, and assessed so we can look to reduce our impact year on year.
This is not an exercise in certification. We want to be true to ourselves and the planet. This is not something that we can afford to get wrong.
Step 1: Offset predicted Carbon footprint
Our first step is a generic carbon offset plan set up through Ecologi which predicts our carbon footprint based on our number of employees. We will continue to offset our predicted footprint until we have calculated our actual carbon footprint to offset against.
We believe that just because we haven’t calculated our entire carbon footprint, does not mean we shouldn’t attempt to offset our footprint. When it comes to combatting climate change it is never too soon to act.
Ecologi allows you to quickly and affordably help fund projects which directly impact atmospheric CO2 levels. They assume a carbon footprint of 14tCO2 per employee per year, giving a margin over the typical carbon footprint for someone the in the UK of around 10-12tCO2 (these figures are approximate based on typical annual emissions figures, UK population, as well as commonly reported figures).
Step 2: accurately account for our whole carbon footprint
We are looking to measure the emissions associated with all aspects of our business activities. We aim to go beyond Scopes 1, 2 & 3 (as defined in the GHG Protocols) and also incorporate the effects of the design work we undertake. We plan to investigate the ways we could consider and account for the embodied carbon of the buildings we design, as well as those we work in. This method recognises the responsibility everyone has for their carbon emissions— from the construction supply chain, developer, and tenant.
We recognise this is not a problem that we are going to solve ourselves, thus we are always interested to hear from other perspectives to improve our approach. Please do get in touch at hello@ruane-cdc.com if you’d like to further discuss with our team.