Verita’s Net Zero Commitment

Verita has joined with other SMEs in the UK as part of the United Nations’ Race to Zero campaign.  We have started on our improvement journey via the SME Climate Hub, where we are using its helpful advice to develop our inaugural Carbon Reduction Plan for 2024.

We aim to reduce further our already modest carbon footprint by engaging our staff and by working with our landlord and partners to develop and implement real changes to our business that will help the environment.

Verita is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2030 for emissions scopes;

• Waste generated in operations,
• Business travel, and
• Employee commuting

The commitment was made on 20/11/23 by Verita’s board of directors.

Our Goals

Verita has committed to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2030.

In aiming for this target, we will focus on determining our current carbon footprint, understanding our emissions and who controls them, and reducing our controllable emissions in the future.  Our environmental sustainability aim is to reduce, progressively, those emissions over which we have direct control until we achieve Net Zero in 2030.

Baseline emissions footprint

There are three categories of emissions;

• Scope 1 emissions—these are the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions that a company makes directly — for example while running its own boilers or vehicles
• Scope 2 emissions — These are the emissions companies make indirectly – like when the electricity we “buy” for heating and cooling our office, is used in the office. On our behalf, the landlord of our building buys 100% renewable electricity from Octopus.  No gas is used. Our consumption of electricity and water is not readily available from the landlord’s bills, and our rental payments do not feature separate charges for energy consumption, water usage or waste management. The landlord contracts physical waste management to a “zero to landfill” company.
• Scope 3 emissions — These are all the emissions that Verita is indirectly responsible for, up and down our value chain. We lease or buy products from our suppliers, mostly consisting of a photocopier and paper, a water dispenser, and sundry stationery items.

We are a knowledge-based business and make nothing physically. Most of our “products”, comprising reports, consultancy advice and professional services are not physical but electronic, except on the rare occasions when we print (on request) a client’s report, or produce presentation or training materials.

Baseline Year: 2024

We do not currently have a baseline calculation of our company’s carbon footprint, or our GHG emissions, but are in the process of determining this as far as possible within the constraints noted above.  We will use data reported in the year ending December 2024 as our baseline for succeeding years of our plan.

Current emissions reporting

Verita currently has no formal emissions reporting in place.

Most Scope 1 emissions for Verita are not within our control.  We are tenants in a serviced office. We rent a 2 desk, 15 square metres office and we are not directly responsible for the provision of heating and lighting. We have no company vehicles, nor do we operate plant or equipment that generates significant GHGs.

We do control other emissions.  Only one employee regularly uses our office, our other 3 staff work from home, thus minimising commuting emissions.  Our office-based employee cycles to and from the office daily.  For client-facing work we use public transport within London. We use trains for work-related travel outside London, and private cars on business only when necessary.  20% of our journeys in the last 12 months were made by car; none was made by air.

Emissions reduction targets: towards Net Zero

In our inaugural Carbon Reduction Plan we will;

• Establish, by 31 March 2024, our initial baseline carbon footprint
• reduce, by 31 December 2024, our office paper consumption by 10% from c.1500 pages a year to c.1350 pages per year
• reduce, by 31 December 2024, work journeys made by private car by 15% from December 2023 outturn
• recycle a further 3 redundant desktop personal computers, by 30 June 2024
• terminate, by 31 January 2024,  our contract for a drinking water dispenser
• encourage existing and new clients to default to “virtual” ways of working on new assignments, and to accept 100% electronic reports – ongoing
• maintain working from home arrangements for 3 staff and all associates throughout the year
• retain our current 15 square metre office rental throughout the year
• Encourage our landlord, by 30 June 2024, to seek B-Corp certification
• Publish our carbon reduction plan on the Verita website by 31 January 2024, and update progress against these aims throughout the year

Carbon reduction projects

Given the size of our company, and our position in a tenanted building, we have developed no discrete carbon reduction projects for 2024.  We will rely on continuous good management of those emissions wholly under our control.

Declaration and sign-off

This Carbon Reduction Plan has been completed in accordance with PPN 06/21 and associated guidance and reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans.

Emissions have been reported and recorded in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the GHG Reporting Protocol corporate standard and uses the appropriate Government emission conversion factors for greenhouse gas company reporting

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions have been reported in accordance with SECR requirements, and the required subset of Scope 3 emissions have been reported in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard.

This Carbon Reduction Plan has been reviewed and signed off by the Verita board of directors.

Signed on behalf of the Supplier:

Peter Killwick, Director

David Scott, Director

Date: November 2023