We are committing to change now by looking at what we are doing as a business and how we can change it.

We have commissioned a sustainability audit to help guide our initial changes and we have signed up to the SME Climate Hub – a commitment to become carbon net zero by 2050. This is a lengthy and important process but we wanted to start somewhere so we choose to look at how we can offset our carbon footprint

The challenges you face when trying to calculate your carbon footprint…..

If every supplier recorded their carbon footprint in a uniformed way this process would be simple but because of a vast number of limitations we found out very quickly that this process is time consuming and complex….

In most cases, a complete and accurate carbon footprint cannot be exactly calculated, but what is causing the problems:-

• Emissions data isn’t fully accessible or available
• Lack of transparency or certainty with what actually happens in a supply chain or the production process
• Too many assumptions being part of a carbon footprint calculation, and these assumptions are quite often inaccurate
• Conditions for production differing around the world
• Different processes and methods being used to produce different products
• Uncertainties associated with IPCC emission factors (from the variability of activity data used to model specific production systems) (www.static.ewg.org)

In fact not a single supplier was able to give us a complete picture of their carbon footprint So how have we done it?….

We knew it would be hard but we wanted to be able to make a start so we set to work in researching the data that is available, talking to sustainability experts and seeing what could be obtained from our suppliers or similar manufacturers. We then started to look at how to improve our sustainable options by commissioning our own sustainability report to review our policies and procedures. This has enabled us to start making some sensible estimates on our carbon footprint.

This is obviously just the start of the journey for us but we are proud to have made our Climate Pledge that will bring us to Carbon Net Zero by 2050.

If you want to look at your own personal carbon footprint we found this to be a useful tool https://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx