Introduction
Even if your organisation isn’t required to do so by law, choosing to report your environmental impacts is a powerful signal of intent.
Why?
Since 1st April 2019, large undertakings have been required to report their environmental impacts under Streamlined Environmental and Carbon Reporting (SECR). This affects organisations meeting two of these three criteria: turnover above £36M, balance sheet value above £18M or more than 250 employees.
Even if your organisation doesn’t meet the criteria, there is no reason why you should not report and it’s a great way of ensuring that environmental impacts receive the same attention as financial metrics. Indeed, a 2016 study by Henley Business School found that publishing carbon emissions results in improved share price performance and that there is “a significant positive relationship between corporate carbon disclosure and corporate financial performance”.
Most organisations begin by measuring their scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions; these relate to emissions from energy consumed on an organisation’s premises and burned by its own vehicles. When deciding which other impacts to report on, the best practice is to undertake a materiality study.
There are a number of reporting frameworks available, which allow impacts to be reported in a consistent way which is easily understood by stakeholders. These include CDP, GRI and SASB.
Once your organisation has decided to disclose its carbon emissions and other environmental data, the next logical step is to set targets to reduce them.
