Fighting climate change
Carbon emissions, measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), are the leading cause of global warming. Guidance from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is clear: companies must look beyond their operational boundaries and their Scope 1 and 2 emissions (electricity, gas and fleet in the main) and consider their Scope 3 emissions. Also known as indirect emissions, Scope 3 often presents approximately 90% of a company’s carbon footprint and includes CO2 emissions from upstream and downstream activities.
Kinovo has spent several months evaluating its operations and identifying what activities result in carbon emissions as part of our Net Zero strategy.
We have identified that the following items represent our carbon emissions inventory:
Scope 1:
Stationary combustion (gas)
Scope 1:
Transport
Scope 2:
Electricity
Scope 3:
Category 1: Purchased goods and services
Scope 3:
Category 4: Upstream transport and distribution
Scope 3:
Category 5: Waste
Scope 3:
Category 6: Business Travel
Scope 3:
Category 7: Employee commuting
Calculating our baseline
We will calculate our baseline emissions for our financial year, ending March 2022, in line with the GHG Protocol. We have worked extensively to create an action plan to reduce each scope and category’s CO2 emissions and have set the following goals:
Reduce emissions by more than 50% by 2030
- Become carbon neutral by March 2023 by offsetting residual emissions from Verra verified offsetting programmes, which also contribute to our Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Become Net Zero by 2040 by offsetting residual emissions from Verra verified nature-based programmes
Resource efficiency
Kinovo procures a large volume of materials to fulfil our service offering. We are working very closely with our suppliers to ensure that they are ESGM responsible businesses. We also want to ensure that they are working hard to limit the use of scarce resources, eliminating, or limiting the supply of single use items and utilising recyclable products.
Kinovo follows the waste hierarchy:
Most of the waste generated from our activities is brought back to our offices where it is segregated and disposed of as effectively as we can. We create monthly waste reports detailing the:
Volume of waste generated per waste stream
Percentage of waste diverted from landfill
Percentage of waste recycled
Moving towards renewable energy
The generation of electricity from fossil fuels is a leading contributor to climate change. The UK Government has set ambitious goals to limit its reliance on fossil fuels and move towards using more renewable electricity. As our electricity contracts come up for renewal, we aim to have all our future electricity contracts from renewable sources by the end of 2023.
Renewable gas is scarce and much more expensive than brown / traditional gas. Accordingly, we are investigating how to move away from gas over time, replacing these systems with electrical systems powered by renewable sources.
We are not relying solely on energy sources to reduce our CO2 emissions. We are also investing heavily in capital expenditure (CapEx) programmes to reduce the volume of energy we use. For example, we are reviewing the lighting across all our offices and will replace non-LED lighting with energy efficient alternatives.
We have also appointed Green Champions across our business to ensure that best practices are shared with all our staff, empowering them to help us reduce energy use.
Fleet transition
As diesel and petrol emissions are large emitters of CO2 emissions, we will complete a study into how we can convert our fleet to electric vehicles (EVs) where possible. We already have some EVs and hybrid vehicles, which we will increase as leases on our existing fleet expire. We have started installing EV charging points across our office locations and we encourage our staff to embrace EV and hybrid vehicles.
