Our climate commitment

Every single human being on this planet deserves a world that exists with net-zero emissions. It is not a gift or a luxury, it is a basic human right. We must all take responsibility for this goal. The duty holds no prejudice, all humans inherit it at birth.

We are standing up at HappyPorch and owning our obligation. We made an SME Climate Commitment in 2020, but also a commitment to ourselves. 

B Corp and our climate commitments

Part of our B Corp declaration is “that we must be the change we seek in the world” and “that all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered”. 

Goal

Our intention is to become and remain net zero. Net zero means to balance the carbon emissions going into the atmosphere with the removal of the carbon emissions from the atmosphere, in the same time period. For us this means making steady progress in reducing our emissions and offsetting emissions we cannot currently avoid. 

Our goal is to reach a Climate Positive. This means that not only are we committed to becoming and remaining net zero, we are also including all greenhouse gases and including indirect emissions (Scope 3). As well as further reductions in our emissions this also means verified like-for-like offsetting any residual emissions.

Measuring our progress

Each year we conduct a carbon footprint analysis. We continue to learn both how to understand our impact and how to improve measurement.

  • 2019 Carbon Footprint report here
  • 2020/2021 Carbon Footprint report here
  • 2022 Carbon footprint report here

Act

Each year, based on our analysis, we set specific carbon reduction targets for ourselves and identify actions we will take.

Current actions include:

  • Measuring and reducing the equivalent CO2 use from our own website and use of Cloud.
  • Reducing the air travel required for our annual team meetups
  • Including a climate impact in our annual review of suppliers
  • Purchasing refurbished hardware and equipment 
  • Staff benefits to encourage carbon reduction
    • Bike to Work scheme (UK scheme which we also fund for non-UK staff)
    • Maximising our fully remote and flexible working to encourage less commuting and travel
    • Encourage and support Slow Travel for staff holidays

Carbon Syncing (& offsetting)

There are a lot of challenges with offsetting, but the reality is that it is an important step - so long as we don’t let it limit our efforts to reduce.

  • In 2019 we offset 100% of our carbon emissions
  • In 2020 we stepped this up a level by Carbon syncing. Carbon syncing, inspired by WholeGrain Digital, is a way to further improve the impact of tree planting as offsetting. It takes years for trees to absorb carbon and so 1 year of our emissions might take 40 years to fully offset with tree planting. With Carbon Syncing we plant enough trees to absorb our annual emissions in one year.
  • For our Team's carbon emission for 2021 we decided to split our offsetting by adding more trees to our HappyPorch grove via Trees for Life and by planting 25 000 wildflowers on a 50 square metre meadow via My Square Metre. These flowers will feed 600 bees for their life time, 18 000 bees over 30 years.

the extraction and processing of materials, fuels and food make up about half of total global greenhouse gas emissions … and more than 90 % of biodiversity loss

UN Environment Program 2019 report

Our work

Enabling circular innovation by working with clients that are doing just that! The circular economy is one of our main business focuses. We believe that in order to stand a chance of tackling climate change and the loss of biodiversity, businesses must adopt circular economy approaches that contribute to regenerative solutions. 

Community

A commitment to be a positive part of the business community is included in both our purpose as a company and our B Corp declaration.

For us this includes:

  1. Never giving less than 1% for our planet 
  2. Ensuring that we always have space for valuable pro-bono work using our professional skills for good
  3. Using our voice to engage in this topic in our communities, for example:
    1. Our HappyPorch Radio Podcast where we explore the topics that connect the esoteric digital world to real world issues affecting us all.  We talk with leading experts and digital leaders about a kaleidoscope of topics such as the circular economy.
    2. Support for Circular Communities Scotland
    3. Taking an active part in business and circular economy community conversations
    4. Support for SCOTLAND: The Big Picture, a remarkable charity dedicated to rejuvenating Scotland's natural landscapes in the face of the pressing climate and biodiversity crisis. Read more in our article.
  4. Enabling and supporting each member of the team to volunteer in their local communities

Reducing and managing waste

We are also learning how to understand and reduce other aspects of our combined footprint. As a fully distributed company this raises interesting challenges.

Our Team members encourage each other to properly reduce and manage waste, for an example when we travel together twice a year for our meetups. We are aware of the environmental footprint of any product and we carefully separate recyclables and we help each other by sharing interesting experiences like these: Plastic Free July – two voices from the team and  July - it's that time of year - Plastic Free!