Certifying Carbon Neutral 2024

Working with Climate Impact Partners – specialists in carbon market solutions – we’ve supported a Gold Standard-verified renewable energy project. This project has offset our Scope 1 and 2 emissions for the calendar year 2024 and helped us achieve CarbonNeutral® company certification, in line with the CarbonNeutral® Protocol.

To become certified as carbon neutral, our business calculated its carbon footprint and made internal reductions where possible. We then provided funding to certified emissions reduction projects, to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by the same amount as our unavoidable emissions. However, it is very important that offsetting is not used as the only solution to carbon emissions and climate change. But, when done responsibly, it can be an effective tool for immediate action. As well as helping to reduce emissions, our offsetting program also helps finance projects that support the transition to a low-carbon global economy. All the projects are independently verified, to ensure emission reductions are occurring. This guarantees the highest environmental integrity in our commitment to have an immediate, positive impact on the climate.

The project we’re currently investing in is the Lingasugur Wind Power project in India. This project aims to generate enough renewable energy to reduce emissions from power generation by at least 75,000 tonnes of CO2e every year. In addition to displacing fossil fuels, funding sustainable and resilient energy infrastructure like this also provides decent work and contributes to economic growth.

We’ve always believed in working collaboratively with our growers and makers right across our supply chain – to reduce our emissions together. That’s why, with the help of environmental consultancy (and fellow B Corp) Green Element, we’ve been measuring and actively reducing our Scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions.

Scope 1 emissions are direct emissions from any owned or controlled sources – an example would be the fuel that our vans use. Scope 2 emissions are indirect emissions that come from the generation of purchased electricity. And Scope 3 emissions are all indirect emissions that occur in the value chain – this includes things like our waste, water usage and the production of uniforms.

We’ve set some ambitious targets to shape our reduction strategy:
• Reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions (in absolute terms) by 50% by 2030, from our 2020 baseline (3065 tonnes CO2e)
• Reduce the carbon intensity of our Scope 3 emissions by 53% over a period of 10 years, from our 2020 baseline (37,426 tonnes CO2e)
• Ensure that the absolute carbon figure for our Scope 3 emissions does not exceed our baseline year (37,426 tonnes CO2e)

To ensure our strategy makes a meaningful contribution to help bring the UK’s emissions to net zero, we’ve been working with the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). They have helped make our targets as ambitious as possible, aligning them with the aims of the Paris Agreement (to keep global heating to under 1.5℃ compared to pre-industrial temperatures). Since setting our baselines in 2020, we have been able to reduce our carbon emissions year on year, in line with this validated strategy (read more in our latest Sustainability Report).

• Reduced our food waste and surplus, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions
• Increased the number of electric vehicles in our fleet
• Fuelled some of our deliveries with hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO)
• Used new technology to make delivery routes more efficient

In line with our ambitious carbon reduction strategy, we’ll continue to introduce more electric vehicles to our fleet, alongside improving the infrastructure to extend their range. In the short term, we’ll also be fuelling an increasing number of vans with HVO, reducing emissions by up to 90% compared with non-renewable diesel.

We also want to start assessing the environmental impact of our growers and makers at a farm level. This will help us establish more accurate measurements of our Scope 3 emissions. From this information, we’ll have a clearer idea of how to support efforts to decarbonise their operations, with the potential for direct funding.

Published August 2024