Embarking on a carbon-negative journey

Introduced in 2015, the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity, for people and the planet, for now and into the future. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an urgent call to action by all countries.

As an agency we wanted to take direct action and have immediate impact, so we have chosen three of the SDGs to focus on initially and will be measuring our impact on an annual basis.

Clean Water & Sanitation (Goal 6) – ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Today, 2.2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water and more than 4.2 billion people lack access to safely managed sanitation. We have partnered with Village Water with the aim to support their mission of improving access to safe water and sanitation in regions of Mozambique and Zambia. We plan to provide pro bono services to upskill their team, a salary sacrifice scheme, annual corporate donations of at least £3,000 and more.

These donations will allow the charity to support a greater number of vulnerable communities by installing new water points, repairing damaged ones, educating families on safe sanitation practices and reducing the number of cases of eye infections and diarrhea in affected regions.

In 2020, Village Water reached 500,000 people and, for the first time, their annual income exceeded £1m. Their transparency around investment of donations was a huge reason why we chose them as our dedicated charity partner, with 93% of income being spent directly on project activities, 5% reinvested towards fundraising and 2% on governance.

Spending such a large proportion of their income on project activities resulted in a 100% drop in diarrhea and 95.2% drop in eye infections in the communities they support in Zambia. In Mozambique, they were able to install a solar water system which gives over 9,500 people access to safe water.

To find out more about their 2020 achievements, please read their annual review.

Affordable & Clean Energy (Goal 7) – ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

All of our office spaces use 100% green energy but when the pandemic hit and we had to send all of our staff home to work remotely, it raised the question – do our team use green energy suppliers at home?

We decided to audit our team and assess our impact not only when we operate from the office, but also from home. It is important that we encourage and reward our team to switch/use green energy suppliers so we introduced a £100/€100 incentive to switch suppliers and committed to planting 10 trees per employee per year to reward those using green energy.

Upon our return to the office, we’re also reviewing ways in which to reduce our overall energy consumption, from switching light bulbs to energy efficient alternatives to being more mindful of our general energy consumption.

Climate Action (Goal 13) – take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Global temperatures are set to rise by 3.2C, which will inevitably lead to greater species extinction, increased armed conflict and more frequent, larger scale natural disasters.

We recently surveyed our team and calculated our base carbon emissions. In order to support Goal 13 we must first aim to reduce this – our goal is to reduce our carbon emissions by 20% by 2022. To help achieve this, we are introducing a greater number of working-from-home days to reduce work travel emissions, and for all corporate travel we will endeavor to use the most environmentally friendly mode of transport. For example, when traveling between our London and Amsterdam offices we will use the Eurostar. In cases when we’re unable to do so or for journeys that require air travel, we will use carbon neutral/negative providers.

Following this, we have chosen Ecologi as our provider to offset our carbon emissions. The restoration of trees remains among the most effective strategies for climate change mitigation. Ecologi are the most cost- and time-efficient way for us to achieve not only carbon neutrality but to become carbon negative. Therefore we will be enrolling on a plan that offsets our carbon emissions in excess.

From looking into these, we have set five sustainable development goals for the agency for 2021 and beyond:

1. Become B-Corp certified – this is a long-term goal as there will be many structural and governance changes that need to be made in order to meet the B-Corp requirements. However, we’re invested in making these changes for the wider benefit they provide socially and environmentally.

2. 1% of our annual net profit to be donated to charity – it’s important that we not only encourage our team to donate but as a company we lead by example. As our company grows, we hope to be able to scale the level of our donations.

3. To become carbon negative by 2022 – carbon neutral isn’t an option for us. As a digital service provider, we’re in an advantageous position to achieve a carbon negative status. It requires appropriate investment, tracking and management, but through a team effort we’re confident that we can achieve this.

4. Donate 500 hours of our team’s time to charitable causes – whether this be through the action days we offer to the team or pro bono work for clients/causes we’re passionate about, we want to not only make a financial commitment but a commitment of our time too. As individuals and as a business, we feel the value we’re adding more so than when we make financial donations.

5. To become zero waste by 2023 – we’re a digital agency, so there are a plethora of ways in which we can reduce our paper usage and find alternatives. We will adapt our office spaces to encourage greater use of projectors/TVs and other portable devices that are run on our renewable energy. We will become more disciplined on our recycling and food waste disposal, introducing composting and more accessible recycling points in the office. Setting a goal date of 2023 will allow us to closely monitor our waste production and develop a robust plan to tackle the issue with a phased approach.

Tilly Morgan is operations and people director at Wilderness.