For many organisations, in particular Small to Medium sized businesses (SMEs), setting out on the road to becoming carbon neutral can seem like a daunting task.
Where do you even start? What data do you need to capture? How can you make inroads into your carbon footprint? Every business will likely have a different starting point and journey, which will be influenced by business size, sector and organisation, but there will be many points of commonality.
The Road to Somewhere
For Aspire, the journey started in late 2021 and was interlinked with some significant milestones in the company’s evolution. It was in the autumn of that year that we moved into our new Pipewell Quay offices. The office was developed from the ground up as a sustainable building with features such as water storage heaters/electric panel heaters, low energy LED lighting and high efficiency low carbon heating/cooling systems. Importantly the site has no gas fired appliances or a gas service.
The move to our new offices in Pipewell Quay also saw the introduction of our new travel to work policy which encourages employees to use public transport or active travel options. We put incentives in place for people to do this (e.g. an additional day’s paid leave for staff who walk or cycle to work) so we could recognise reductions in car usage and environmental impact. Alongside these changes we also put in place a plan to transition our company car fleet to electric and hybrid vehicles.
It was also around this time that Aspire entered into a strategic partnership with Stellium Datacentres, choosing Stellium to host our cloud services platforms including Aspire Cloud Services as well as providing co-location space to our customers to benefit from cost effective, sustainable hosting services. Stellium has established itself as one of the UK’s leading datacentres for low carbon hosting as it uses only REGO-certified green energy as well as being equipped with onsite solar PV panels and battery energy storage arrays which enable it to come off the national grid entirely at peak times.
What Gets Measured Gets Done
Another significant catalyst for Aspire was the publication of the snappily titled PPN 06/21 – Taking account of Carbon Reduction Plans in the procurement of major government contracts. This UK Government policy note sets out details of how public sector buyers should take into account potential supplier’s commitment to carbon reduction in evaluating tendered opportunities. As an organisation with a significant number of public sector customers, it was important that we demonstrated our commitment to sustainability.
Critically, the supporting information provided with the policy note set out clear expectations about how suppliers should report on their greenhouse gas emissions and plans to reduce their carbon footprint, as well as detailing the categories of emissions (known as scopes) that had to be reported – this was a crucial first step on our carbon reduction journey.
An Intervention
Aspire’s sustainability journey took another step forward in early 2022 when LDC capital, the private equity investment arm of Lloyds Banking Group, made a significant minority investment in the company. As part of the due diligence undertaken for the transaction, LDC appointed a specialist Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) auditor, Sustainable Advantage, to evaluate the ESG performance of the business ahead of the equity investment.
The audit report included an estimate of Aspire’s carbon emissions which provided an important baseline upon which we could base our Carbon Reduction Plan and identify priority areas for further action. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
Networking for Success
Another key step in our journey – and one that is readily adaptable by most/all organisations was the foundation of a Sustainability Network Group. The group, formed of employees of Aspire, was founded to drive forward all things in the sustainability space – both environmental sustainability but also the wider aspects of being a sustainable business and our interactions with the communities in which we operate. It’s fair to say that the group has had a major impact, leading on our drive to achieve carbon neutral status and also on other initiatives such as our ISO14001 environmental management certification.
Step Change
Up until mid-2023, Aspire had been able to make incremental improvements to our sustainability, including changes to our built environment, travel policy and waste disposal practices which all helped to reduce our carbon footprint, but as a fast growing company it was always going to be challenging for our carbon reduction initiatives to keep pace with our rapid growth as a business (we have almost doubled in size in the last 3 years), so the real step change in our sustainability credentials was when we engaged with NGO (non-governmental organisation) Carbon Neutral Britain (CNB) to commission our first full GHG emissions report.
With the help of CNB we were able for the first time to measure accurately all of our Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions following the internationally accredited approach (The standard is known as ISO14064). With CNB’s help we were able to measure everything from our organisational energy and water consumption to our employee commuting, transport of goods to and from our sites and the impact of e.g. events and business travel. This gave us a comprehensive baseline of our GHG emissions aligned to science-based targets.
As in the old adage, “what gets measured, gets done”, armed with this baseline we were able to devise the next wave in our carbon reduction strategy whilst in the meantime offsetting all of our residual emissions utilising offsetting schemes audited and approved via the United Nations CER, Verra, and Gold Standard Mechanisms, enabling us to achieve certified carbon neutral status. Carbon Neutral Britain use only the top-rated 1% of all schemes globally that have demonstrated they are genuinely offsetting carbon emissions in an auditable and measurable manner; this avoids any claims of “greenwashing”, i.e. businesses misrepresenting their climate action.
Is it perfect? No; do we ultimately want to fully eliminate all of our carbon emissions at source? Yes; but in the meantime it is the pragmatic approach to take, whilst never taking our eye off the bigger prize.
A Greener Future
Whilst all of the above represents a significant step change for Aspire it could be argued that the above is simply “table stakes” in terms of climate action.
Where Aspire has really excelled and plans to do more is through partnerships where our company moto and ethos is “coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, working together is success”. It is through our partnerships with an ecosystem of suppliers where Aspire stands out in terms of our sustainability strategy and which has both helped Aspire to drive down our Carbon Footprint and also supported our customers to deliver on their own carbon reduction Plans:
- Aspire choose Stellium Datacentres as our strategic partner based on Stellium’s own world class sustainability credentials. Stellium, the UK’s largest purpose built datacentre and a national treasure located here in the North East of England, is powered by 100% green energy, accredited by OFGEM under the Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) scheme for delivery of renewable energy. Furthermore, Stellium has implemented an innovative battery storage and solar solution to further reduce their carbon footprint and is able to entirely come off the national grid at peak times. All customers choosing Aspire benefit from all of our core services being hosted at Stellium which automatically improves customers’ sustainability credentials and we can also host customers IT infrastructure in our dedicated hosting area in Stellium utilising our award-winning “Path to Cloud” services.
- Aspire has partnered with the North East’s leading IT asset disposition provider, Born Good, to provide sustainable solutions for customers who need to dispose of their end of life IT equipment. We work with Born Good, both for our own IT disposals and also offer the service to our customers as part of our RealCare Modern Workplace managed service recognising that a Modern Workplace is an environmentally sustainable workplace. Born Good take the approach of refurbishing/reconditioning IT equipment to give it a second life and donating equipment to charities and other good causes. Where IT equipment is beyond repair, Born Good’s approach is to break equipment down into its constituent parts so minerals and precious metals can be brought back into the circular economy.
- Aspire has also developed a strategic partnership with Extreme Networks, one of the global leaders in IT networking solutions. Through this partnership we have piloted Extreme’s ground-breaking energy consumption monitoring software, which provides deep insights into the power draw of their networking equipment and which provides customers with the information to enable them to run their IT networks in more environmentally sustainable ways, such as automatically powering down Wifi Access Points at times of low utilisation. Aspire are actively working with Extreme to transition this initial pilot into full operation across their product range.
The Crucial role of Technology…and Technologists
The race to net zero, and winning this race, will constitute the greatest technological achievement since humankind put a man on the moon. Almost all the solutions in the race to net zero are driven by technology and as a North East technology company, it is our responsibility to lead the way in this region.
We already have incredible partnerships with the likes of the North East Automotive Alliance – and we provide the network connectivity to the UK’s first Electric Vehicle Gigafactory, AESC UK, in Washington but we #Aspireformore. With the first EV factory being based in the region and the world’s largest wind farm, Dogger Band, being developed off the North East coast, the North East is rapidly transitioning to be the Sustainability capital of the UK and arguably Europe.
However we have one major obstacle, which is the still relatively small number of students, especially girls, coming out of schools, colleges and universities into careers in STEM (Science and Technology). At Aspire we aim to turn this tide, for example working in conjunction with our partners at the Newcastle United Foundation and the Foundation of Light to inspire more youngsters into a careers in STEM through a programme of community engagement.
Make no mistake about it, it will be technology and technologists that will win the race to net zero; and as a technology company this race is a challenge we must be ready to accept, we must be unwilling to postpone and one we will help to win.
Watch how we go!
