Gold Progress on our Carbon Footprint

The Carbon Charter runs in Norfolk and Suffolk, providing guidance, support, and recognition to small and medium businesses taking positive action towards Net Zero.

The Gold Charter is only awarded to “organisations deemed to be exemplifying best practice in terms of demonstrating significant reductions in carbon emissions and championing the environmental agenda”.

So we are delighted to receive this recognition!

Since our baseline year of 2016/17, we’ve reduced our direct emissions by over 66%.  In that time we’ve made lots of changes including reducing our business travel and encouraging more online meetings with clients; improving insulation and double-glazing; encouraging cycling to work and supporting remote working; changing to green tariffs; and increasing recycling.  We also spent considerable time investigating solar panel installation but decided against, in part because of ethical concerns about labour conditions in supply chains.

Our Business Ethics

Our Gold accreditation further reflected that, as ethical financial planners, our ethos is to enable socially and environmentally responsible investing.  The award committee noted that “the exemplary ethical values of the company help your clients to choose emissions-saving and environmentally friendly investments.”  We couldn’t have put it better ourselves! 😊

Looking forwards, managing our carbon footprint is, of course, all about ongoing improvement.  We’re continuing to look at what we can do better, including putting more focus on our Indirect Scope 3 emissions. Our latest Environmental Action Plan is available for download here.

Big thanks to Richard and all the team at Groundwork East for their support.