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ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

CARBON FOOTPRINT

Climate change is happening faster than ever before – with partly unknown impacts on the climate system and its dynamics. To prevent the worst consequences of climate change, global warming must be limited to well below two degrees, better 1.5 degrees. We, EnviroSustain, can make an important contribution to climate protection through our entrepreneurial actions. Through our long-term CO₂ reduction strategy, we will reduce our CO₂ emissions and, where possible, avoid them completely.

We are implementing this mainly through the following measures:

Remote working

We support remote working – we have six nationalities in the team (German, British, French, Belgian, Polish and Chilean). Working remotely while visiting family is also an option and is often taken up by staff. With our team spread across ten locations, in Germany and the UK. This allows for a flexible approach to work and reduces the need for long commutes.

Air travel

We avoid air travel, especially within Germany, where possible and use trains for business travel. Where necessary, we will use cars/hire cars, with preference given to electric vehicles. Our own fleet is 75% electric.

Free public transport.

In 2021 ES began covering the costs for staff using public transport in Berlin. This allows us to encourage staff to use public transport options to reduce our emissions as a business.

Default options

We encourage vegetarian and vegan options when catering for meetings and staff gatherings. Meat options, if available, tend to be chicken rather than beef or pork, which are more carbon intensive. When working with external catering services, we focus on local and organic produce and support local, independent businesses where possible.

Reducing plastic

We provide lunch reimbursements to employees who use the office crockery instead of single use containers when buying lunch on the go.

Materials

When buying materials, we use sustainable products (e.g., reusable or recycled products) and purchase all our office material from a sustainable supplier. Our office furniture comes from a local second-hand store. We prioritize long-lasting electronic devices working with our IT service provider to try to avoid replacing devices, and we try to limit the use of hardware. We have set Ecosia, the green search engine, as our default and encourage all employees to use it.

Facilities

In 2021, we switched our facility management to a sustainable cleaning company (Die Bioputzer). They use natural and biodegradable solutions and aim for sustainability throughout their entire business establishment.

Energy

We source 100% green electricity for our headquarters in Berlin and the radiators are fitted with programmable thermostatic heads. For 2022, we have planned to upgrade the radiators with smart thermostatic valves. This will also allow us to control the temperatures through an app. We will also install window contacts so that the heating shuts down as soon as windows are open for a longer period of time.

MEASURING OUR CARBON FOOTPRINT

Despite the many efforts to keep our carbon footprint as low as possible, our business activities still cause CO₂ emissions.

In professional cooperation with ConClimate GmbH, we had our footprint calculated for the third time in 2021. Last year we emitted 35.2 tons of CO₂ emissions. This is 18.4 tons more than the year before.

On the one hand, we can attribute this increase to an improved data situation compared to the previous years. For example, we had to introduce a system to optimise our data collection and avoid losing important data. On the other hand, the number of business trips made by our employees has increased considerably in 2021. With a total of 11 tons, business trips represent the highest share in our balance sheet. This is followed by the purchased goods and services for our business and the commuting of employees to our offices (5.2 tons and 4.6 tons of CO₂ consumption).

This increase is not unexpected however, as the previous reporting period took place during the COVID pandemic and during this time, business travel was limited, and staff were working from home. Furthermore, we had an increase in the number of employees by 10% people, which of course resulted in additional emissions due to new work equipment, business trips and travel to the office. It does also give us a clear insight into where we can focus our efforts for the coming year to try and reduce our footprint.

[1] The home office category includes all electricity, heating and water consumption of each employee during their respective working hours. In this regard, the electricity tariff and heating type of each employee were asked for. Since it was not possible to determine the exact consumption of each employee, the consumption was calculated on the basis of the average per capita consumption of the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt).

COMPENSATION

In total, our corporate activities caused 35.2 tonnes of CO₂ emissions in 2021.

To compensate for these unavoidable emissions, we are investing in the project "Solar Energy in Jaloya/India". This project involves the construction of solar parks in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. This is an essential project for climate protection, as India's continuing economic growth means that the demand for energy is also constantly rising. Much of this energy is generated by burning fossil fuels, which results in immense CO₂ emissions. Through the solar parks, part of this energy can be generated more sustainably. It allows an average of around 298,000 tonnes of CO₂ emissions to be saved. The project also includes the operation and maintenance of the solar parks.

By supporting this project, we are contributing to more sustainable energy production in these areas and thus to combating climate change. In addition, the project is creating important jobs and infrastructure development, supporting local communities and economic growth.

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WASTE

Since our employees did not work regularly in the office in 2021 due to the COVID pandemic, our waste data was extremely unreliable. Therefore, we have decided not to include this number for 2021. We will resume reporting on our waste generated in our 2022 report now that staff have begun to return to the office.

We will continue to reduce our waste generation, for example by continuing to:

bring meals in reusable containers
buy products with no/less packaging
use dishes from the office kitchen to collect meals from nearby cafes/restaurants.

INDOOR AIR QUALITY

The global challenges faced in 2020 and 2021 reinforced the important role of indoor air quality in ensuring health and well-being for building occupants. Throughout the year, we continued to monitor parameters such as CO₂ and TVOC as well as comfort parameters such as temperature and humidity in real-time. Given we largely switched to remote working practices, we provided our employees with strategies to improve their indoor air quality at home.

A CLIMATE POSITIVE WORKPLACE

Total CO₂ eq offset in 2021: 151.18 tonnes

See our certificate

In December of 2021, we signed up with Ecologi as a Climate Positive Workforce. This enables us to offset the emissions from our team’s personal and professional lives by planting trees and funding climate projects. The projects supported include:

Reforestation and rewilding projects
Energy efficient cook stoves
Renewable energy projects

Through our profile and monthly certificates, we can follow the growth of our virtual forest (trees planted through reforestation projects each month) and see further details of the gold standard climate projects we are supporting. In December 2021 these were:

Preserving Amazonian rainforest in Brazil (16.9939 tonnes of CO₂eq)
Wind power generation in Bac Lieu Province, Vietnam (5.0761 tonnes of CO₂eq)

While compensating our emissions, we will continue to endeavour to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions further in the coming years.

November 2021 was our 20^th Anniversary, and to celebrate, we planted 20,000 trees through reforestation projects with Ecologi.

These trees are funding two reforestation projects of coastal mangroves in Mozambique and Madagascar!

Mangroves are a small, coastal tree species that occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics and are particularly proficient at absorbing carbon and storing it in their extensive root systems underground. Carbon stored in mangrove forests is considered blue carbon, because it is stored on the coast. In addition to their excellent carbon sequestration abilities, mangroves provide excellent flood and storm protection to the coastal area itself.

You can visit our profile here to see full details of the forest, reforestation projects and climate projects that we are supporting.

SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION

& PURCHASING

Guiding action:

When choosing suppliers, we look out for a sustainable approach to their business practice.

Where possible, we ship office deliveries in returnable containers.

When purchasing food and drinks or ordering catering services, we focus on local and organic produce and support local as well as family-run businesses.

We reduce our paper consumption where possible, and purchase only recycled paper.

We source additional office furniture from a local second-hand business, prolonging the lifecycle of items in excellent condition.

When purchasing products, we always give preference to the least packaged product.

We provide lunch reimbursements to those employees who use the office crockery instead of single use containers.

Our business cards are made from recycled t-shirts.

We use electronic devices for as long as possible, rather than replacing them with a newer model as soon as it becomes available.

We involve our employees in our sustainable consumption and purchasing strategy through training and education.