Sustainability

The Carbon Literate Project accredits organisations like ours with Carbon Literate Organisation status when they have undertaken various steps and shown commitment to being Carbon Literate. We truly believe in the CLP ethos and are striving for a Platinum accreditation. As a Carbon Literate Organisation we will typically experience a decrease in energy and resource consumption, improved organisational profile, healthier and happier staff, a healthier working environment, a safer supply chain, lower variable costs, enhanced competitiveness, and reduced commercial risk. CLO accreditation also demonstrates an organisation’s corporate social responsibility in the clearest possible way.

Louise Harris from Suffolk Mind who leads the sessions said "This milestone marks a significant moment for us at Suffolk Mind; it's the very first time we have the capability to extend our programme of training for children, young people and educators to such a broad range of schools.

This incredible opportunity has been made possible due to the support of Axter. This partnership, based on Axter’s commitment to the community as a local company, will provide a foundation upon which we can build transformative mental health education.

Axter is giving something invaluable, helping us equip children and staff with skills and understanding that will last a lifetime."

Our dedication to being a sustinable business extends to more than just our operations, we are committed to delivering education and support to all our employees to help them understand and continue on their own individual sustainability journey. We have partnered with Hattrick training provider and they have delivered the Net Zero Carbon Literacy Masterclass to all our employees. We have all had to make individula pledges and we are working towards becoming a Carbon Literate Organisation.

After 9 months of data collection, measuring and benchmarking. Our Carbon Assessment was verified by Natural Carbon Solutions, an independent body that gives us an accessible, credible and transparent certifcation. Now we have a benchmark year we can begin really focussing on how we imporve and reduce our carbon emissions even further.

We have now completed our B Impact Assessment and have submitted it to B Corp for evaluation. We expect the review process to take around 4-6 months. We will then hear if we have gained enough points to be awarded B Corp Status. While we wait for the review to take place we will be working wit our partners Cyd Connects analysing our own results and devising ways in which we can improve our score even further.

There are 3 central Scopes of measuring carbon: Scope 1 - Gas, diesel, oil, and emissions from refrigerant leaks; Scope 2 - The purchase of heat, steam, cold water, and electricity; and Scope 3 -Upstream and downstream activities including supply chain. We have begin exploring each scope in detail, collating finite data from our supply chain, our partners and our own entities.

The carbon emissions from each Scope need to be quantified which requires carefully collecting data over the course of at least a year. The year we are reviewing is 2022.

We have chosen to undertake B Corp's Environmental Social and Governance assessment; the B Impact Assessment.

B Corp is a global business certification based on a robust sustainability framework. Businesses that hold the B Corp Certification are verified by B Lab to meet the highest standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. B Corp’s mission is to create an inclusive, equitable and regenerative economic system for all people and the planet.

We felt an affinity with the purpose of B Corp, and felt the collaborative approach and robust measuring tools for assessing our sustainability would be a good fit for us. Cyd Connects our chosen sustainability partner will be guiding us through the process.

Cyd Connects stood out to us as a team of inspiring women determined to make positive change across businesses. We have partnered with them to measure, assess and create a rigorous sustainability pathway that ensure we 'meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs'.

They also highlighted to us how critical businesses are in accelerating the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Read more about those by clicking here

Our determination to understand the impact our business has on our climate and communities has been on our agenda for a while, but we are now ready to assess ourselves properly, utilising the best tools and experts at our disposal. We intend to be highly critical of ourselves, in order to make proper, beneficial and lasting change to the way we operate, so that we can move forward in a truly measured and sustainable way, in all aspects of the word.