Why and how we began our Global Carbon Footprint Calculations

We don’t have to report our carbon footprint this year (we’re close, but we’re just below the threshold for the UK’s Streamline Energy and Carbon Reporting – SECR – regulation). However, we think whether or not we have to report is beside the point, because we are passionate about sustainability and we believe in doing things properly.  

Personally, I see this as the most important project we can focus on. Having just completed an MSc in sustainability, I’m very aware of the need for a fast and decisive response to the climate crisis. CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted from the world’s everyday activities have been shown to be driving climate change across the world. If we want to address this, we need to reduce our emissions, but as the adage goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure, so waiting until we’re forced to act wasn’t really an option for us.  

This is why Techbuyer actually began the carbon footprinting journey in our previous financial year (see our latest sustainability report for more information). This year, we are building on this by reporting our global scope 1 and 2 footprint and laying the groundwork for a full scope 3 estimate next year. This all comes with a variety of challenges to grapple with.  

How do you calculate a carbon footprint? 

Calculating our total CO2 emissions – our footprint – is not a small job. Luckily, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol put together a handy guide that breaks the process down into the three scopes of emissions shown in the graphic below. The measurement used is CO2 equivalent (CO2e), which accounts for each of the seven greenhouse gases at the top of the image.   

Greenhouse Gas Protocol 

Along with the UK Government’s guidelines, this framework was a crucial resource to help chart a pathway towards our first robust footprint. Like all companies, the first two scopes are the easiest for us to start with, as these are the things that we have the most control over. To do this, we needed to get a handle on our use of resources like electricity, gas, and vehicle fuel across our global offices.  

What have we done so far? 

The first hurdle was actually collecting the raw data itself. This can often be difficult, but this is especially the case for us, as we’re reporting on nine offices across six countries, and billing systems can vary significantly between each one. Sometimes, bills come included in the rent rather than separately; sometimes, we receive information quarterly or yearly instead of monthly; sometimes, the bills simply don’t have all the information we need. 

This means we need to deal with each supplier on a case-by-case basis. Our first step was to have discussions with representatives from each office around the world. This helped scope out which things we’d need to track from each one. For instance, only four of our offices have a gas supply, while one also uses gas-powered forklifts and has four delivery vans in operation.  

Moving forward, collaboration will be key. At Techbuyer, we’re lucky enough to have lots of people who care about sustainability across all our offices, so our role has been to facilitate their passion and set up effective channels of communication between departments to keep the information flowing. This is also a great way of fostering innovations and finding new ways to reduce our impact. Transparency is also important to us, so we make sure the latest figures on our emissions are available to anyone in the company. 

What are we planning next? 

Scope 3 is the next challenge to sink our teeth into. Like most companies, this is going to make up the vast majority of our footprint – our deliveries alone account for significantly more than our scope 1 and 2 emissions combined – but it’s also the trickiest to measure. It can be incredibly hard to quantify the emissions associated with many items, and our circular economy business model complicates this. We don’t always buy the same items from the same suppliers, and we can rarely predict what we’ll purchase when.  

There are plenty of resources available to help us define a roadmap to navigate these challenges. The UN Global Compact offers lots of useful advice on this and is running a series of webinars on how to reduce scope 3 emissions that we’ll be attending over the next few months. Working with universities can also be advantageous. We’ve reached out to the University of Leeds about taking on an MSc student from my old sustainability course to research existing case studies and approaches. This should generate some interesting insights, but it will also help give a student some valuable industry experience, which is part of our UN Global Goal commitments.  

Once we’ve got all this information, we can then turn our attention to reducing our impact and working towards net-zero emissions. So, it’s a busy year ahead!