Our carbon journey - reporting greenhouse gas emissions
For nearly 60 years, we've been pioneers in sustainability consulting and low-carbon building design, and we apply the same ambitious mindset in our own practice as we do in our designs for clients. We have committed to Science-Based targets (emission reduction targets that align with the climate science to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement) to reduce our emissions.
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Committing to the Science Based Targets initiative also involves disclosing our progress, and this report tracks our company-wide emissions for 2024 and our target progress. We have had our data third party verified in previous years and will third party verify at regular future intervals as well.
Our Science-Based targets commitment is to reduce our Scope 1 & 2 GHG emissions by 46% by 2030, with 2019 as the baseline. We are also striving to achieve a similar reduction in Scope 3 emissions (e.g., travel, services and waste). This year we have expanded our scope 3 emissions reporting to incorporate a full scope 3 assessment for the first time.
2024 saw a 21% reduction in GHG emissions per employee over the Baseline Year. We are transitioning our offices away from gas with our 2 remaining offices heated by gas planned to transition away from gas within the next few years.
The impact of cloud-based emissions has not historically been acknowledged as a significant Scope 3 impact by many as part of their scope 3 reporting. As we move towards more cloud-based computing and adopt the use of AI in our consultancy work we have incorporated these emissions for the first time, using a purchased based impacts assessment acknowledging that the necessary data to accurately quantify these emissions is not yet accessible. This is an area we expect to be evolving and will monitor.
While we have in place a scope 1 and 2 decarbonisation plan already, we are continuing to look at where we can make improvement through our environmental working group and in the next year we plan to release our up-to-date climate transition action plan.