5. October 2022
Julia Kriegel
If you follow us closely, you’ve probably already come across our motto – “We Do Not Just Compensate”. For us, our sustainability initiative VAST GREEN means holistic change, something that cannot be achieved through mere compensation.
But of course there are areas in our remote business that we can’t simply change – such as our digital supply chains. There are also emissions that we emit ourselves and have to compensate for. Also, we sometimes travel to meet clients, or we meet as a team for an event two or three times per year.
An important goal for 2022 was therefore to identify and measure our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions – and then offset our corporate carbon footprint, which cannot be changed in the short term.
In order to measure the emissions and identify viable offsetting options, we were looking for third-party expertise: specialists from the sustainability industry who could work with us as partners. We wanted to benefit from their experience and work with them to find trustworthy offsetting options, avoiding greenwashing.
At first glance, the offers seemed to be diverse, but a closer look showed that most sustainability consultancies follow a rather superficial scheme, based on general criteria of order and compensation. It soon became obvious that the business model of most consultancies is to sell subscription models and certificates, instead of closely monitoring small companies like VAST FORWARD and guiding them on their way to more sustainability.
In one of our recent blogposts, we described the ‘textbook’ approach that most sustainability consultancies seem to rely on. Plus, we share how we finally found a suitable partner, ‘SPENOKI’ /’Code Gaia’, to provide us with a transparent emissions calculation.
Our emissions were recorded and evaluated with the help from ‘SPENOK/’Code Gaia’, who used their software and our company figures as a basis: In total, 28.1 tons of CO2-equivalent emissions were produced in the period from March to September 2022 (including Tier 3 emissions from our extended supply chain). In our Impact Report we have broken down our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions transparently for all interested parties.
Once our ‘footprint’ was calculated, it was time to compensate for our emissions. In September 2022, we decided to realize our CO2 compensation with ‘Planted’: every month, the private and business emissions of our entire team are now compensated for via global climate protection projects, and we also support the planting of climate-stable mixed forests in Germany.
Working together with ‘Planted’, we contribute as a team to reduce global emissions, to equip German forests against climate change by planting climate stable mixed forests, and additionally supporting the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.
You can follow our engagement on the Climate Action Page by Planted.
