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Net Zero Carbon

Net Zero Carbon
Net Zero Carbon for our Clients

Our Own Journey

What we are doing to make our own organisation Net Zero Carbon

As a business we are working to reduce our CO2 emissions and aligning ourselves with the UN sustainable development goals.

Since 2019 we have measured our CO2 emissions as a business using the PAS 2060 standard. These calculations have provided a framework for our decision-making process as a business and have helped identify our largest sources of emissions and what steps we can take to reduce these.

What we have found

  • Our Bristol office had the lowest annual carbon emissions per person per year, our Swindon office was in the middle and our rural Cornwall office accounted for the most emissions

  • Transport (commuting plus travel to meetings) is our single largest generator of CO2 emissions

  • Electricity for all of our offices is purchased from the landlord

  • CO2 Office supplies are a relatively low percentage – we only own some furniture and laptops

  • Food and catering was not included in the assessment

Carbon Reduction Projects

Method is committed to leading the industry in minimising the impact of its activities on the environment and we have already implemented a number of carbon reduction projects in an effort to reduce energy use from company operations.

Travel
Travel, either to and from work or for business is one of our highest emissions. As a company we encourage the use of sustainable travel whether by use of public transport or by walking or cycling. All of our offices have showering and changing facilities to enable staff to travel in a more sustainable and healthy way.
Steps we have taken in order to reduce our travel emissions include:
  1. Implemented a cycle to work salary sacrifice scheme to financially assist staff members to adopt cycling as a more sustainable form of travel
  2. Implemented an electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme for all members of staff to help assist make the switch away from fossil fuel powered vehicles
  3. Relocated our Swindon office to a town centre location with improved public transport links
  4. Reinstated the Method monthly sustainable travel day to promote lower carbon means of commuting
  5. Committed to to using public transport or an electric car for 50% of project meetings (availability permitting)
  6. Embraced virtual team meetings where possible to reduce business travel
Energy Demand Reduction

We are committed to reducing our energy usage across all our offices and using green energy where possible.

Steps we have taken in order to reduce our energy emissions include:

Heating

  1. Relocated the Swindon office to premises with improved building fabric and all-electric based heating
  2. Bristol is all electric heat pumps so no further action proposed
  3. Cornwall is biomass heated so no further action proposed

Electricity

  1. Across all of our offices we are currently in negotiations with the various landlord’s to buy from renewable energy generators (green tariffs). Our hands are tied somewhat as we buy off of the landlord.
  2. We are also in negotiation with the landlord to contribute to a rooftop photovoltaic arrays, although our Cornwall office already has this
  3. We have switched all of our servers to Cloud based servers for optimum energy efficiency
Procurement and Food and Drink
Steps we are planning to take include:
  1. Review of supply chain and switching to suppliers more closely aligned to our business values where possible
  2. Review of company catering policy and an aim to reduce the carbon emissions associated with our company catering choices. We have also significantly increased the proportion of non-dairy milks being provided for the office, to aim to reduce the carbon emissions associated with our tea and coffee drinking habits

Offsetting

We do not do carbon offsetting by buying woodlands. Whilst there are a growing number of organisations which use this method to help declare themselves as being Net Zero Carbon, we simply do not see it as legitimate to “buy & preserve woodland” but then carry on with business as normal! Instead, we have opted to take action to actively cut our carbon emissions and offset and we offset our residual carbon emissions by supporting low carbon initiatives in our local communities.

Recent beneficiaries include:

  1. BS3 Community; a local charitable organisation who were founded in 1991 to improve the lives of people living in BS3 and the surrounding areas. We have been working with BS3 since March 2024 looking at opportunities to help them decarbonise the buildings they occupy and reduce their energy consumption and costs. As part of our work we have made a donation to the BS3 Community to fund the installation of a roof mounted PV array.

  2. Perranporth life guard hut in Cornwall where we sponsored a rooftop PV array that will generate around 4000kWh of electricity a year. 

  3. Minchinhampton School in Gloucestershire where we sponsored a 51.59Wp rooftop PV array that will generate around 49,130 kWh of electricity a year. 
Steps you can take as an organisation
  1. Undertake a PAS 2060 carbon assessment
  2. Draw up a Net Zero Carbon plan
  3. Obtain EPC ratings for your premises
  4. Negotiate buying electricity from a renewable electricity generator (green tariff)
  5. Undertake a formal sustainability benchmarking assessment such as BREEAM
  6.  Move to offices which have non-fossil fuel technology and preferably has heat pump technology (or biomass technology)
  7. Install LED lighting
  8. Install PV
  9. Provide cyclist facilities
  10. Provide access to good public facilities, preferably a train station
  11. Introduce an EV policy
  12. Provide EV charging facilities
  13. Provide e-scooters or e-bikes
  14. Move to plant based catering
  15. Offset residual carbon by sponsoring low carbon initiatives in the local community

What we are doing next

Per person, transport in Cornwall is by far our biggest CO2 emitter. Improving public transport links is very difficult and the distances involved do no lend themselves to e-scooter or e-bike technologies and so our next key project is to investigate how we can provide EV cars, either on a pool basis or on an individual basis.

Carbon Reduction Projects