Scottish EDGE and Sustainable Practices
Project by Evelyn McDonald, CEO & Kevin Walls, Relationship Manager
It all started with a harmless question. ‘Could Scottish EDGE send over a copy of your Sustainability Policy?’
The problem was, we couldn’t. Despite having introduced ‘Impact’ as one of Scottish EDGE’s six competition criteria in 2020, we didn’t have a Sustainability Policy. While we were asking others to measure their environmental impact, the truth was we weren’t doing it ourselves. So, in early 2022, we set out to do just that. Not just to write a policy, because anyone can do that and file it away for those odd occasions when you have to wheel it out, but to properly measure, cut and offset our emissions.
As a team of eight at EDGE (4 full-time and 4 part-time) we are roughly the same size as the average EDGE winner so we could also see a great opportunity to lead by example, share our journey with our clients so they could follow in our footsteps and actively work at cutting our carbon footprint in a way that would benefit both our community and the planet we live in.
But where to start?!
Well, at the beginning! As our understanding of climate change grows, it is becoming increasingly clear that businesses need to take action to reduce their carbon footprint. By calculating our emissions, we were able to identify areas for improvement and take steps to reduce our collective environmental impact.
EDGE Relationship Manager, Kevin Walls, undertook the task of leading a project to calculate the carbon emissions impact of both the Scottish EDGE team and our events. The purpose? To produce a plan to reduce this impact to its minimum.
Using the Scottish Enterprise Net Zero Accelerator Assessment Tool, the team monitored progress against five key areas businesses must consider in order to reduce the impact of their carbon emissions. Namely:
1. Understanding Our Impacts
2. Commitment, Targets and Reducing Impacts
3. Leadership and Staff Engagement
4. Collaborating, Supporting, and Innovating
5. Climate Change and Market Trends
From a less than stellar start (hangs head in shame), the overall scoring of EDGE’s measurements improved by 30% in just 7 months, moving the total score from 2.88 out of 5 to 3.72. Our carbon emission totals were calculated using Government measurement data against the following headings:
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1. Energy consumption from home working |
5063kg Co2 pa |
It does take a bit of time to do this so you need to nominate someone in your office who is happy to get into the details of staff travel to the office, how many emails each team member sends and the carbon emissions of an egg roll versus a bacon one but once you have the data the emissions are clear to see.
Once we’d used all the trackers to crunch the numbers, we calculated that Scottish EDGE produces between 15 and 20 tons of Co2 emissions on an annual basis.
We used the following resources which we would highly recommend:
We would also like to say a big thank you to Mark Sorsa of Beringar - who helped with the calculation of our shared office emissions and Adam Bastock of Small99 who advised on heaps of things with patience and good humour and also shared the wonderful food carbon footprint calculator.
We are huge fans of Adam’s platform Small99 which guides small business owners to net zero through practical tips that build a more resilient and profitable company at the same time.
In the coming months and years, this total should reduce organically as more innovative ways to reduce carbon are utilized. For example, the whole team will eventually move to electric vehicles and potentially solar panels for home energy.
In the meantime, however, there were and are some immediate actions for us to focus on:
What did we do?
Staff working from home.
In recent years, many businesses have shifted to remote or hybrid working models, EDGE included. Working three days per week from home helps the EDGE team to reduce their carbon emissions from travel as well as the time saved from commuting. However, it is also necessary to consider the amount of energy consumed by staff home devices during working hours, as well as utility and heating output. As such, we upgraded all staff devices to more energy efficient equivalents, and donated the previous devices to the Turing Trust for use in developing countries. We additionally followed practical guidance around turning off lights, heating and devices in rooms that were not being used.
Focus on Digital Sustainability
Digital sustainability refers to the practice of reducing the impact of everyday technology used by businesses on the environment. Often, it requires adapting existing infrastructure or introducing new initiatives to help lessen digital emissions. The transmission of data via the internet contributes up to 4% of our greenhouse gas emissions due to the millions of servers in data centres around the world required to process the data. Practical measures we’ve taken to reduce our digital emissions include using less media content on the EDGE website, deleting old emails, and turning off the camera during video calls. We have also stopped sending unnecessary acknowledgement and thank you emails (so please don’t take it personally!)
Travel to meetings and assessments
Transportation is a significant contributor to carbon emissions, particularly when it comes to business travel, and with over 500 winning businesses in EDGE’s database, it’s not difficult for our Relationship Managers to clock-up the miles. To reduce the impact of such meetings, our managers have switched to remote/virtual meetings wherever possible, and if a meeting requires an on-site visit, then public transport or car sharing is encouraged. Furthermore, all of the first-stage assessments, semi-finals, and sub-category finals, with the exception of Social Enterprise EDGE, now take place remotely – completely eliminating the travel and location impact of around 50 assessors meeting in-person and up to 65 businesses travelling to pitch. We estimate this alone will eliminate 1352 kg of carbon this year.
Sustainable Event Practice
Embracing sustainable event practices is becoming increasingly important as we strive to minimise our impact on the environment. For example, by gradually shifting toward exclusively vegan catering options, we can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of the EDGE live finals and awards by reducing the amount of greenhouse gases emitted through the production and transportation of animal products. For example if we serve a lamb curry at our events that’s a very high 3760g CO2e per serving but a chickpea curry is only 705g CO2e per serving. We have two Finals a year and two Alumni events which is around 500 meals so switching from meat to vegan could save 1527 kg in carbon alone.
Also, by encouraging our delegates to car share or use public transportation, we can help reduce the number of vehicles on the road and cut down on air pollution. These simple but effective measures can make a big difference in promoting sustainability and ensuring that our events are enjoyable while also being environmentally responsible.
What’s Next?
A new sustainability policy
Our first step was to produce and a Sustainability Policy that addresses the areas unique to Scottish EDGE, but there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Like many businesses, Scottish EDGE is unique in its service and operation. Our Sustainability Policy reflects that.
Our sustainability policy is founded on the guiding principles of transparency and fairness, fostering a culture of partnership and collaboration, valuing the longer-term consequences of our decisions, and leading by example to create a more sustainable future for everyone. This was produced for review and discussion at our board meeting on the 15th May 2023 and will be reviewed quarterly thereafter.
Carbon Reduction Plan
We will also produce a carbon reduction plan, a critical step towards addressing climate change and reducing an organisation’s carbon footprint. A carbon reduction plan sets out a roadmap for identifying and reducing emissions across operations, supply chain, and other relevant areas.
The plan typically involves setting targets, establishing a baseline for measuring progress, and identifying specific measures to reduce carbon emissions. In our case, these measures will include energy efficiency improvements of our devices, reducing travel and events-related emissions, and offsetting remaining emissions.
Carbon Offsetting
Regardless of our efforts, it would be impossible for us to reduce our annual Co2 emissions to zero. As such, carbon offsetting is an important tool for mitigating the negative impacts of our greenhouse gas emissions.
Scottish EDGE is aiming to offset the 15 to 20 tons of Co2 emissions that we produce annually using the most credible provision on the market based upon our own research, while at the same time working to reduce it. Currently, that research has led us to a soil carbon capture project led by recent EDGE winning business, Seilich, which will also support rewilding of flowers that can be harvested for use in cosmetics and help pollinate the surrounding area. The soil carbon capture process removes Co2 from the atmosphere and stores it in the soil carbon pool, from which it cannot easily escape.
Carbon offsetting allows businesses and organisations to take responsibility for their carbon footprint and support efforts to address climate change. While the best approach is always to reduce carbon emissions at the source, offsetting can help to balance out the emissions that cannot be avoided.
But what about our applicants and winners?
We already ask our 350+ applicants a year the question, ‘as a business, have you set any goals around Net Zero/sustainability and, if so, how are you or will you measure these?’ as part of our impact assessment criteria. We recognise that for some of our winners this will be the first time they have considered this, but this is where the value lies, in ensuring that from the outset businesses think about what they do and how this impacts on the environment and on their customers, employees and stakeholders. Paying no more than lip service to this and our other impact questions could mean the difference between businesses progressing in the competition or being knocked out in the first stage.
Having gone through this process we now know what a good answer to this question looks like and can advise our applicants on how to follow in our footsteps.
Why are we doing this?
We are committed to reducing our Carbon footprint for several reasons. Firstly, we’ve always believed in leading by example, we try to embody the thinking and practices of the businesses we aim to attract to our competition, and as such we want to demonstrate our commitment to sustainability to others in our industry. By reducing our carbon footprint, we can show that it’s possible to conduct business while prioritising the environment.
Secondly, we recognise that many of our partners and supporters are also interested in reducing their own carbon footprints, and we want to support them in achieving their sustainability goals. By implementing our own carbon reduction plan, we can share our experience and knowledge with our network and help them in their sustainability efforts.
Thirdly, reducing our carbon impact is essential for the health of our planet and the well-being of future generations.
Finally, we want to share our progress, successes and inevitable failures with our stakeholders. By openly communicating about our carbon reduction initiatives, we can hold ourselves accountable, track our progress, and identify areas for further improvement.
Do you want to join us?