This article provides an opportunity to report on my business Greenhouse Gas emissions for my environmental consultancy, onePlanet Solutions, for the financial year 2022/2023 and the steps that we intend to take to reduce our Climate Change impact.
It looks at the output from the calculation of my business Greenhouse Gas emissions and the practical steps to reduce the emissions as the consequence of declaring a Climate Emergency on behalf of my business through the UN Climate Change’s Climate Neutral Now programme, which is closing in 2023, my commitments to Pledge to Net Zero & SME Climate Commitment.
It is an update to my earlier articles reporting on my company’s carbon footprint in previous years: What is my Company’s Carbon Footprint?, What is my Company’s Carbon Footprint Report for 2021 / 2022?, What is my Company’s Carbon Footprint Report for 2021 / 2022? & What is my Company’s Carbon Footprint 2020?,
If you missed earlier posts in this series: How to declare a Climate Emergency? , How I declared a Climate Emergency?, What I did after I declared a Climate Emergency? & How to calculate Greenhouse Gas emissions for a Climate Emergency?, you can catch-up on the steps taken on behalf of my environmental consultancy to declare a Climate Emergency.
As readers of this website will recall, my company (onePlanet Solutions Limited) has been providing environmental consultancy for over ten years with the clear principle of striving to provide our services in the most environmentally and climate-friendly manner possible.
Our company declared a Climate Emergency in November 2019 and outlined how we will respond to this global threat by re-engineering our business.
The first steps were to declare publicly that we recognise the Climate Emergency and to follow-through with practical steps to determine our current Greenhouse Gas emissions and the impact that they have on the environment & to take further actions going forward.
Using the relevant conversion factors for 2022 & 2023, which can be found in earlier articles: UK Greenhouse Gas Reporting: Conversion Factors 2023 & UK Greenhouse Gas Reporting: Conversion Factors 2022 our business Greenhouse Gas emissions were calculated from our known activities for the financial year: 2022/2023.
So, with a distant drum roll introducing the final figures, here is the declared Greenhouse Gas emissions for my business for the financial year 2022/2023:
| Scope | Emission Source | 2022/2023 tonnes CO2e | 2021/2022 tonnes CO2e |
| 1 | Gas – Office heating | 0.4508 | 0.3727 |
| Car journeys | 0.5865 | 0.3539 | |
| 2 | Electricity – Office | 0.0788 | 0.0817 |
| 3 | Air Travel | 0.3981 | 0.00 |
| Hotels | 0.2599 | 0.0552 | |
| Public Transport | 0.0029 | 0.0402 | |
| Waste Disposal | 0.0021 | 0.0021 | |
| TOTAL | 1.7791 | 0.8868 |
Commentary on carbon footprint
The reporting year saw greater opening of the economy since the COVID-19 pandemic and the lifting of restrictions, which started in 2021/2022. The company resumed with limited “on-site” consultancy work in the UK and Ireland with car and train journeys being the main transportation options for delivery of our environmental support, such as pollution incidents and clean-up activities, and associated hotel stays, when required. Accordingly, the carbon emissions for Car Journeys were higher than the previous year, when national lockdowns were enforced. Use of public transport decreased in the reporting year due to limited public service options for specific client locations, which necessitated the increased use of car transport reported above.
Our international work continued through the use of remote meeting platforms, such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom and GoToMeeting, in close agreement with our clients without the need to resort to international flights. However, one specific client had a specific need for support work in the USA and Ireland, which is recorded as an increase in these emissions over the previous reported emissions for 2021/2022.
As our office location remains the main focus for the delivery of remote environmental and sustainability consultancy. Our office-based emissions for electricity, gas and waste disposal were similar to the emissions in 2021/2022 with a decrease in electricity usage promoted through the use of smartplugs to more accurately record consumption as well as to allow for remote switch-off of un-necessary electronic devices.
Whilst the key Scope 1 and 2 Greenhouse Gas emissions from the main business activities have been included, we have included Scope 3 emissions for travel, hotel stays and other readily available Scope 3 emission conversion factors. However, it should be noted that there are minor exceptions related to Scope 3 emissions, where data is not readily available. Examples of Scope 3 emissions related to the company are purchase of certain goods and services, such as the purchase of video equipment, the operation of our websites at www.oneplanetsolutions.co.uk & www.emsmastery.com and use of Microsoft Office 365, which have not been included as this information is not readily available at the present time.
Once this information is available, we will ensure that these goods and services and incorporated in my business Greenhouse Gas emissions going forward.
Off-setting carbon emissions
As part of our United Nation’s Climate Neutral Now (CNN) Commitment, we have purchased Certified Emission Reductions from the United Nation’s CDM Registry Administrator to account for our unavoidable carbon emissions for 2022/2023. The CNN programme is being wound-down in favour of the UN’s Race to Zero initiative, which we will continue to support through our adoption of the UK’s Pledge to Net Zero, specifically aimed at the environmental and sustainability sector & the SME Climate Hub.
Carbon footprint Targets
Based on the 2022/2023 carbon footprint, it is evident that our business remains on-course to meeting its carbon emission targets through positive activities to reduce carbon emissions through the management of our delivery processes, which started well before the impact of global COVID-19 pandemic, & energy reduction projects, such as How to monitor electricity use with a smartplug resulting in reduced electricity consumption within our office.
Our principal reduction target is to reduce the business emissions particularly for air travel and car use, which has become an integral part of my business to support our international clients. Our Scope 3 emissions arising from our air travel were zero for 2021/2022 as well as the previous year: 2020/2021 compared with 32.22 tCO2e in 2019/2020.
Our travel emissions have in previous years been demonstrated a downward trend required by our Science-based targets as publicly reported in the article: How to set Science-based Targets for Carbon Reduction? and we are on-course for meeting our commitments for a 1.5 degree Scenario by 2025.
It is anticipated that a limited amount of international work will continue to be conducted in 2023/2024 with the level of company Scope 3 emissions being significantly less than the range of 0 – 32.22 tCO2e to follow the downward trend in carbon emissions evidenced since 2019/2020 in line with our declared plan for the reduction of our carbon emissions, which is available here
Specifically, our Scope 3 emissions will be reduced by 5% year-on-year with projects to replace our diesel vehicles with electric vehicles in 2023 & to reduce our dependence on air travel with the use of low-carbon travel options.
I welcome your comments and thoughts about my company’s annual reporting of our Greenhouse Gas emissions from our business activities in 2022/2023.