Environmental Policy
Background
Human induced climate change is one of the greatest threats currently facing the world. Urgent action is needed to reduce greenhouse gases and mitigate the impacts of climate change. It is in this context that we at Delta-EE are publishing our Environmental Policy statement.
Delta-EE helps more than 270 organisations to progress the energy transition. The work that Delta-EE carries out has a real and positive impact on reducing carbon emissions within the energy sector across Europe and beyond. However, we also acknowledge that in undertaking our work activities we emit carbon. Reducing our own carbon emissions is important to us at Delta-EE because:
- It’s our responsibility
One of Delta-EE’s core values is ‘Doing the right thing’ and in line with this we, as a business, want to reduce our environmental impact. We consider it our responsibility to ensure our activities are environmentally and socially responsible. - Supporting the transition to a low carbon future is part of our mission
Delta-EE exists to enable the energy transition to happen quicker and better. In keeping with our ethos, and particularly because of our mission, we also want to reduce the impact of our own activities. - Our staff care
Many of our staff want to work at Delta-EE because they are motivated to make a difference. Our staff care about the environment, and they want to see Delta-EE reducing its own impact, as demonstrated by a recent staff survey where 94% of respondents stated they want Delta-EE’s environmental policy to be ambitious.
This policy outlines our ambition and commitment to reducing our environmental impact, specifically around carbon emissions. It is intended to clearly state our objectives and key principles. Each year we will publish an update to report on our activities and progress.
How we developed our policy
Estimation of carbon emissions for the 2019-20 baseline year has helped to guide our priorities for the policy. Through this, estimation of a baseline carbon emissions is 57 tCO2e per £M revenue, (see in Figure 1) based on those activities which could be measured. Over half of these emissions are from flights.
Emissions from the 2020/21 and 2021/22 years will be estimated following the completion of a staff working-from-home and travel survey in Spring 2022. As a growing business, Delta-EE activities will be increasing over the next decade and we will measure our emissions in absolute terms, per employee and relative to turnover. These metrics will help us to understand and see trends in our emissions.
Figure 1 - Estimated carbon emissions in 2019-20
Our environmental ambition
We have selected the turnover metric to measure our emission reductions because it reflects the positive impact of the work undertaken by Delta-EE, and the need for Delta-EE to increase its activities to help more companies with the transition.
We aim to halve our CO2 emissions by 2030 relative to turnover and to be net-zero by 20402. This includes all emissions (scope 1, 2 and 3) that we are able to monitor.
Alongside reducing our carbon emissions, we commit to investing in climate change mitigation outside of our own value chain. We will do this through donations to climate change mitigation projects which have additional social or environmental benefits.
Example of focus on actions
International travel is important to our business in order to reach new clients and maintain relationships with existing ones. It also allows us to keep informed of our industries through attending events. Given our staff are based in different countries, there is also a need for inter-country travel for internal business reasons.
Our approach to reducing flight emissions will be:
- Being selective about travel, and finding alternatives to making trips where suitable
- Using modes of travel that cause lower emissions where practical, such as train instead of plane
- Where air travel is required, maximising value out of each trip, e.g.more client meetings
Our approach to meeting net zero
Our Environmental Strategy outlines in detail how we will meet our net zero ambitions. Key principles of how we have approached developing this strategy are ensuring:
- Our focus is outcome-driven.
The environmental policy exists to drive down our relative emissions and see a real difference in our carbon impact. Actions which will have the greatest carbon impact and are most straightforward to implement will be prioritised. At over half of our carbon emissions in 2019/20 baseline year, business air travel is the most significant area to target – see figure 1 - Recognising that reaching net-zero will not be easy.
To make a meaningful reduction in our carbon emissions will require a shift in how we operate, our culture and norms. In order to realise our ambition, we need to integrate environmental decision making into all major business decisions and allocate additional budget in some areas. - Involving and engaging staff is important to our approach.
Delta-EE’s values include ‘doing the right thing’ and ‘fulfilling our ambition’, and we have applied this to the environmental policy and statement development. It has been a staff-led process involving wider staff consultation in order to ensure the actions we implement, especially around behaviour change.
Delta-EE will be taking forwards this commitment and strategy in 2022 and beyond. We will be identifying and implementing priority areas for carbon reduction, measuring our carbon emissions on an annual basis, and reporting on our progress.
2. Delta-EE are setting its net-zero targets in alignment with the Science Based Targets initiative definition: https://sciencebasedtargets.org. Note: Delta-EE have not joined the SBTi and these ambitions have not been validated by the initiative.
