In achieving Net Zero once again, Raisely is committing to the fight against global warming. That means reducing and offsetting our carbon footprint across every element of our operations.
In 2020 Raisely nailed Net Zero.
Don’t know about Net Zero? Not sure why this is so brag-worthy?
Let us explain.
Net Zero means we’re removing as much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as we’re adding through our day-to-day operations.
It puts us in a neutral position of ‘doing no harm’.
And why’s that important? Because – for CO2 at least – this is the state at which global warming stops.
And you don’t have to be a polar bear to know that no-one should be ‘ok’ with global warming.
Since we’re passionate about people and planet, we couldn’t let it slip by in 2021!
Already inducted into the encyclopedic world of climate change - involving initiatives like the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, Gold Standard, Science-Based Targets, The United Nations Climate Change Conference, Sustainable Development Goal 13 and more (thanks to the team at Carbon Neutral) - we knew we needed to be Net Zero again!
And guess what? We did it!
Even better: you can too.
Read on to find out more on our Carbon Audit, and how you can zero in on Net Zero.
Why did we do a Carbon Audit?
Raisely is one of over 500 B Corps that committed to Net Zero by 2030.
Given that it’s pretty much impossible to completely avoid creating greenhouse gas emissions, the best we can do is to balance them out through carbon offsetting.
But to know how to strike that balance, we needed to understand what we’re putting out there.
That’s where the Carbon Audit comes in.
The audit maps out our carbon footprint by identifying each emission source. Knowing sources, we can make decisions around reducing our output in particular areas - or choose to offset.
Now, while we have our own very high standards of social responsibility, we’re also committed to aligning with the values of our partner organisations.
This means, at Raisely, we’re committed to walking the talk; we want to do more than enable you to achieve your goals, we want to actively play a part.
So, we choose to squash our carbon-emitting activities (where we can) and otherwise buy carbon credits from certified activities.
That means investing in community development, protecting ecosystems or technologies that reduce or remove emissions from the atmosphere.
We think it’s pretty cool.
What did it involve?
We’re not going to lie, producing a carbon report is a heavy-duty process.
But when the future of our planet is at stake, it *kinda* feels worth it 😉
A major part of our carbon audit, was connecting with Carbon Neutral - a leading carbon solutions provider and carbon offset developer.
Together, we collated and reviewed a whole heap of information from the last financial year on what we’ve done and how we did it.
We looked at:
🚗 Emissions from business travel and staff commuting
A time to reflect honestly on our step count and own up to those times we sneakily all drove ourselves to the same event…..
⚡️ Our electricity use – whether co-working or home-working
Also an opportunity to look in dismay at what we’re all spending running heating/cooling, TVs, lights and everything else. Budgets ahoy!
⛓ Emissions from supply chain purchases
Yep, that even means digging into the emissions from things like internet hosting, our subscriptions, office equipment, postage and so much more. Starting to see why we needed help?!
🏡 Accommodation and air travel
Not an issue this year… thanks COVID 🙄
📂 Office paper
We’re paperless – Yay!
How did we go?
Despite the fact that we doubled our staff team this year (woo!), we actually decreased our emissions per head.
And yes, we do feel pretty proud of ourselves.
Thanks to the efforts of our fabulous team members in Australia, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand and the USA, while our carbon footprint (as you would expect) increased overall, the intensity dropped by almost 50% per staff.
Raisely’s total emissions were 69.91 tonnes CO2e for the period 1 July 2020 -30 June 2021. But due to the purchase of carbon neutral electricity and hosting, our net emissions were in fact 56.26t!
As mentioned, the total emissions did increase BUT the measure per staff decreased - even with a team that went from 9-20 people!
Overall, we managed to decrease our CO2e per staff from 7.38 to 3.82t.
That’s a win in anyone’s book.
Moving forward
While we did a very happy dance over our reduced carbon footprint, we still needed to offset those emissions we hadn’t managed to avoid.
So, it was time to pick a fabulous project in which we could invest.
For the second year running, we became carbon neutral by purchasing our offsets with the Australian Gold Standard Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Project.
This powerful project aims to:
🌱 Re-establish the natural landscape of a 200km corridor in the northern wheatbelt of Southwest Australia.
🌱 By planting up to 60 different tree and shrub species indigenous to the region
🌱 Which will provide birds and animals with habitat for food, nests and protection from predators
🌱 And, in the process, remove 1.059M tonnes of CO2-e from the atmosphere over 50 years.
But our Net Zero work isn’t yet complete. We can – and we will – do even better as we move forward. Through efforts such as setting an even tougher benchmark for the future (we’re on it!) as well as:
✅ Encouraging our teams to purchase renewable energy
✅ Flying carbon neutral (when the opportunity presents!!)
✅ Encourage energy efficiencies when we’re working at home
✅ Diverting any organic materials we receive away from landfill – like cardboard packaging.
Doing business, better
The great thing about what we – and you – do, is that our work is all about making life better.
But (dare we say it) it doesn’t have to stop with fundraising.
We can all do more just by making smarter choices. And to do that, we have to constantly learn from organisations that are developing and following best practices.
That’s why we’re inviting you to sign up to our newsletter.
Join us on the journey and together we’ll make the world a happier, healthier place for everyone.
