As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting the natural world, Innovation Visual has pledged to monitor and negate our carbon footprint. To do that we will reduce and stop the carbon production that we can control and offset what we cannot.
We are committed to releasing these figures every 6 months so as to be as transparent as possible in our efforts for our team and stakeholders.
Our mission is to be the leading digital marketing consultancy (by client results) that provides strategy to tactical implementation services in an on-going partnership approach.
Based on our travelling distance and paper consumption, here is our carbon footprint for 2020:
|
Activity |
CO2 Kg |
|
Travel |
6200.19 |
|
Paper |
752.46 |
|
TOTAL |
6952.65 |
Compared to the figures of the previous 6 months, this shows an increase of only 551kg in the latter half of 2020.
Our monthly CO2 production figures runs very much in line with our travel data. This is because this is the main cause of CO2 that we are able to measure, another being paper purchases.
February is believed to represent a typical month of commuting and business travel, pre-lock down measures and produced 1.42 tonnes of CO2 alone. Assuming this as a representative figure, our efforts in 2020 have prevented more than 12 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere!
We have measured the number of work-related journeys each month, for all of our employees, including commuting and traveling to meetings and events by various means.
The impact of Covid-19 restrictions is very easy to see from our travel data. Following the first National UK lockdown in mid-March 2020 the entire team adopted quickly to working from home, with only occasional and necessary trips into company premises. The entire team has remained as home workers ever since and the results of this on our carbon output are staggering.
If we take February’s figures as a representation of a typical month of commuting and business travel, then we can extrapolate and conclude that our efforts in 2020 have prevented more than 12 tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere!
Business travel has fluctuated, during times when government restrictions have allowed us to do so, however we have been committed to keeping these trips to a minimum in order to help protect our staff, clients and families as well as lowering our carbon footprint.
We have not taken any business flights or train journeys since the first lock down measures. In fact, we have not used public transport at all, which means that our travel has all been through the use of private cars, which whilst not being the most conservative method with regards to carbon output, has helped to keep our team safe during the pandemic. Once we are able to safely use public transport again it would be sensible to promote this as an alternate means of travel, but for the time being we will be encouraging our teams to remain as safe as possible if and when they must travel.
We have been measuring our waste output and recycling. To both better evaluate our output, we have been splitting this not only into recyclable and non-recyclable, but also, recyclable and non-recyclable plastic. The figures tell an interesting story:
During 2020 we produced 20 domestic bin loads of waste, which can be broken down into the following:
|
Waste |
Domestic Bin loads |
|
Landfill |
7 |
|
Recycled |
12.5 |
|
Food waste |
0.66 |
Two-thirds of our waste has gone into recycling or compostable waste.
Due to the low numbers of people in the office throughout 2020 and the significant reduction food waste as a result, we stopped measuring food waste and instead added the odd disposable item to the landfill data.
Throughout the year we have produced 1.47kg (2 bin loads) of plastic that is non-recyclable, compared to 1.39kg (2 bin loads) which was separated out to be recycled. Looking forward we will be looking to turn the tide on this waste and to ensure that we reduce the amount of plastic that we use and further reduce the percentage of this which cannot be recycled.
Paper UsePaper purchases have been recorded by weight.
Producing 100,000 sheets of A4 paper (499kg) from new sources requires over 8 trees and has a ‘life-cycle carbon footprint’ of 6 tonnes of CO2. This includes the process of creating the paper and disposing of it 8 times (as on average paper can be recycled about 7 times)
Based on these figures we calculate that our yearly purchases of 62.6kg of paper had an environmental cost of 752.46kg of CO2.
The full yearly figures suggest that, despite early projections, our paper purchases have remained steady, with higher amounts purchased on different months as required by business need. Our monthly average has however fallen slightly from 6.1kg to 5.2kg. We are dedicated to reducing our paper usage and have invested in signature software for documents, both coming into and out of the company,
Innovation Visual is committed to supporting the natural world and contributes to various charitable organisations.
We are passionate about protecting wildlife. As part of our commitment to the preservation of the natural world, Innovation Visual joined 1% for the Planet in 2012 and volunteers to donate a minimum of 1% of our annual turnover to environmental causes every year. These donations are taken from the company profits, so that our clients are not impacted by increased prices.
The Innovation Visual Directors have been donating to David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF)
on a personal basis for many years, so it was no surprise that this was the first charity we chose to support through our 1% for the Plant membership donations.
The David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation funds projects in Asia and Africa which work to protect endangered wild mammals through conservation programmes, education initiatives and through fighting wildlife crime. Their fundraising goes directly to support anti-poaching and conservation projects which are directly involved in the survival of these vulnerable animals, including tigers, rhinos, painted dogs and snow leopards.
In addition to regular donations, in early 2020 Innovation Visual donated time 100% free of charge to rebuild the DSWF website to support their fundraising efforts. This labour of love was a massive success as more than £12,000 was raised in the first afternoon after launch!
A little closer to home, Innovation Visual are proud corporate sponsors of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Trust (ARC Trust). This UK-based charity works nationally and internationally to protect and conserve native species of reptiles and amphibians, through education and conservation, to protect our natural world.
Since March 23rd we have conducted approximately 99% of our client and supplier meetings and 95% of our internal meetings virtually using secure online software. This has supported our aims to reduce our travel needs and CO2 output and has also worked to keep our team, clients, suppliers and families safe during this trying time. When we have had meetings in person, these have been conducted safely, with due respect to any restrictions and government guidelines. They also generally took place with individuals who were geographically very close to our business premises (in the next building in a couple of cases).
The efficiency and productivity of our team has continued to increase and we have reached the finals in a number of awards, including the Drum Awards for to Digital Industries, the European Search Awards, the Global Agency Awards, the Global Digital Excellence Awards. We also took gold at the International Business Awards for Company of the Year – Marketing, Advertising and PR.
We have held a number of social and team building events virtually, in place of our regular social nights and the planned team trip to Poland, including a very successful Christmas party.
Due to his brilliant captaincy throughout the metaphorical storm of 2020, Tim Butler, CEO and Founder of Innovation Visual, was nominated by his team as Lockdown Leader at the SME National Business Awards – we look forward to congratulating him on his win in May 2021!
We will continue to host and attend events virtually when this is an option, even once travel becomes safer and unrestricted.
Printing has reduced to the bare minimum as we have further invested in our eSignature software which means that many more documents can be sent electronically for secure signing. Those documents which must be sent in hard copy form are printed double sided whenever possible and the lowest grade of paper used as appropriate.
We will continue to monitor our paper usage throughout 2021. Unlike some companies, we are not issuing printers to employees, to further help the reduction of paper purchasing and waste.
We have cut down as much as we can on our waste production and have continued to measure what we do produce in an effort to be more conscious of our efforts. Christmas brought an influx of deliveries to the office and, with these, unfortunate waste items such as packaging and packing materials. We have reused whatever we could and so managed to keep our packaging purchases to a minimum.
Limited working in the office has reduced the waste produced and we appear to have reached a minimum baseline level for the amount of waste produced, however we will continue to make efforts to reduce this. anyone coming into the office is reminded to bring reusable containers for their food, to recycle any items that can be and to only print if it is absolutely necessary.
As much as we have done, there is still a certain amount of measurable CO2 that we have produced. We have chosen to offset this production with a charitable organisation who can use our donation to cancel our production and also help those in need around the globe.
Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty, or COTAP uses money from carbon offsetting to alleviate global poverty and tackle climate change.
Innovation Visual were very happy to pay to offset the 7 tonnes of CO2 we have produced throughout 2020, through COTAP. COTAP uses reputable third-party certification organisations, is certified by 1% for the Planet, and has full transparency of where the money is used.
Taking Root’s Limay Community Carbon Project in Nicaragua. This is a community-based reforestation initiative which works with small-scale families who are farming in Nicaragua, with the aim of restoring ecosystems and improving livelihoods whilst also tackling climate change.
Ecotrust’s Trees for Global Benefits (TFGB) Community Carbon Project in Uganda. This global award-winning initiative acts for long-term and verifiable voluntary emission reductions by combining CO2 binding with improvements to the rural livelihoods of small-scale farmers through community led forestry and agroforestry projects, whilst also reducing the pressures on the natural resources of national parks and reserves.
KSKHAW-UMWS’s Khasi Hills Community REDD+ Carbon Project in India. Spanning 27,000 hectares, the REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) implements strategies for forest protection and restoration. The project also details long-term plans for improving the livelihoods of more than 3500 families who are living below the poverty line.
The Nakau Programme’s Drawa Rainforest Conservation Project in Fiji. The Drawa project received the 2020 International Energy Globe Award for Fiji, arguably the most important award for sustainability worldwide, for their work protecting 4,120 ha of lowland tropical rainforest on the land of 8 Fijian clans. The project reduces 18,800 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
KKI Warsi’s Bujang Raba Community PES Project in Indonesia conserves endangered primary rainforest in Sumatra's Bukti Barisan forest and involves 5 indigenous communities in protecting the mountainous tropical forests. The project works to reduce poverty and hunger for 1300 families as well as promoting gender equality and climate action.
Cooperativa AMBIO’s Scolel té Reforestation Project in Mexico. Scolel'te, meaning "the tree that grows" in Tseltal, the indigenous language of Chiapas, Mexico, works with local small scale farming families to protect the indigenous forest. It is one of the world’s longest forest carbon projects and contributes to the protection of 8 protected natural areas and works with the indigenous people who help make the key decisions.
There is no positive aspect to producing CO2 but it is brilliant that we can help the wider global community through our efforts to offset, and we invite our friends and colleagues to do the same.
