III. Carbon Reduction Commitments/Actions

Blue Sapphire Consultancy Ltd is committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050 and as part of this commitment, has an interim target of reducing emissions by 20% by 2030.  This plan is reviewed annually by the Directors to check progress and establish if changes should be made to the actions we have in place to maximise our reduction in carbon emissions.

The basis of our Carbon strategy is one of Measure – Prioritise – Act – Measure – Repeat.

Measure 

We report on the sources of environmental impact over which we have operational control, calculate our carbon footprint monthly in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocols Corporate Standard, and report against the Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gasses in terms of:

• Actual targets – absolute reduction targets which compare actual figures in the target year to those in the base year.
• Intensity targets – based on a normalising factor.

We subscribe to a proprietary online carbon calculator service to manage our data inputs, conduct the required calculations, set and record our intensity metrics, and provide monthly carbon reporting. The data that sits behind this is the UK Government Greenhouse Gas reporting database, updated when appropriate.

This provides us with our emissions by source, and total emissions by month, sets our intensity metrics and tracks performance month-on-month.

Our chosen intensity metric is kg/CO2 per £000s turnover / 27 m2 floor area / unit output /4 employees.

Our base year for all measurements is 04/2023 This will not change unless there is a significant change to our company structure (e.g. a merger or acquisition) or a change in the company’s ownership, in which case the base year may move to the reporting year following the structural change.

Specific inputs and output used to calculate figures quoted in our Carbon Reduction Plan include:

• Electricity.
• Gas.
• Heating oil / lpg / solid fuel.
• Fugitive emissions (uncontrolled/unmanaged emissions e.g. fridges/air conditioners that leak refrigerant gases).
• Water.
• Solid waste.
• Liquid waste.
• Fleet vehicle mileage by vehicle type car / van / LGV.
• Employee commuter mileage by type – walk / cycle / motorcycle / car / bus / train.
• Business travel by private car / bus / rail / air / sea.

Prioritise 

Our monthly carbon calculation has enabled us to identify the largest sources of GHG emissions, and to focus those which have most impact. That does not imply however that we are not implementing actions across the board. We have been able to identify quick and easy wins: 

• Reduce absolute carbon emissions by 2.5% by 2027.
• Reduce business travel carbon emissions by 10% per capita by 2027.
• Reduce energy use per square metre by 10% by 2027.
• Purchase 50% of purchased electricity (1.3 tCO2e) from verified renewable sources by 2027.
• Reduce consumption and waste with 60% waste generated recycled to reduce landfill.
• Reduce single use plastics, packaging and increase recyclability of products by 90%.
• Reduce energy usage over the next 5 years by 5% through increased staff awareness, homeworking, LED lighting replacement.
• Use of online resources instead of printed materials.
• Exploring the introduction of a salary sacrifice electric vehicle scheme.
• Source 100% materials from and manufacture products within the UK to reduce carbon emissions and improve supply chain transparency by 2027.
• Biodiversity initiatives developed or supported in the PA local area.
• Due diligence on 100% supply chain suppliers to ensure they have a clear and time bound commitment to sustainability and carbon reduction which relate to relatively low impact areas whilst also implementing longer term multi-facet strategies for the larger emission areas.

Act 

Our action plan involves Behaviour Change, Process Change and Technology Change.

We have taken the obvious first step and committed to sourcing electricity from a 100% Renewable Energy tariff.

Behaviour Change –

We have communicated our Net Zero ambitions across our workforce, and have tasked staff with identifying where they can affect carbon reductions through behaviour change.  Examples include: 

• Encouraging the turning-off or powering-down of appliances and lights when not in use.
• Eliminating unnecessary heating in unoccupied areas.
• Education programme relating to the importance of saving water as a carbon mitigation measure.
• Permitting home-working and encouraging video-conferencing.
• Encouraging alternative travel to work e.g. walk, cycle, car-share, public transport.

Process Change –

We have conducted a thorough review of all our process to identify opportunities to reduce or eliminate physical waste, and making more efficient use of materials (e.g. electronic data storage and moving towards paperless systems).

Technology Change –

We have introduced the sub-metering of electricity, gas and water where possible and practical.  This has significantly improved our understanding of how we use energy within the business. 

With this information, we have developed our action plan to implement the Best Available Technology in relation to: 

• Lighting – adoption of LED lighting, better lighting controls.
• Identifying and implementing opportunities for on-site low / zero carbon energy generation.
• Water use – specifying low consumption appliances during the normal replacement cycle, and accelerating that where high-consumption devices have been found.  
• Appliances – replacing appliances with the best available in terms of energy use in the normal replacement cycle, but accelerating that for the highest consumption appliances.
• Reduction in use of paper and consumables through introduction of electronic systems to replace paper based procedures such as intranet and online induction/training, electronic storage of documents etc. 

Scope 3 –

Whilst we can influence the Scope 3 emissions arising from our staff travel to work, other upstream and downstream emissions are harder to measure and report.

We have communicated our Net Zero ambitions to our Tier 1 supply chain partners and are engaging with them to support us with reporting Scope 3 emissions that are not under our control.

Measure

Our monthly carbon reporting means that we are in a continual measurement programme, and by implementing the above actions, we are able to see how well each specific measure is working and refine our processes accordingly.

Offsetting

Offsetting the emissions that we can’t mitigate will become part of our strategy, but only at the point that we’ve implemented all of the possible behavioural, process and technology changes that we can influence.

Review 

This carbon reduction plan will be reviewed at least annually and may be altered from time to time in light of legislative changes or other prevailing circumstances.

Declaration 

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

Emissions have been reported and recorded in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans, the GHG Reporting Protocol Corporate Standard and we use 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.

We confirm this Carbon Reduction Plan is reviewed and signed off at board level on an annual basis and is available on the home page of our website.