Emperor

Emperor is an employee-owned strategic and creative communications consultancy and a B Corp dedicated to helping organisations connect with their stakeholders, from employees to investors, to achieve remarkable outcomes. They focus on transforming ambitions into success through clear, authentic, and consistent communications. Their expertise ranges from brand and digital to reporting, sustainability, and moving image.

CLIENT OBJECTIVES

As a B Corp, Emperor has an ambitious responsible business agenda. One of their key goals is to make reduced carbon emissions a shared objective across their operations, ways of working, and services. To achieve this, they sought to understand their carbon footprint and identify carbon hotspots, setting the stage for their partnership with Green Element. 

BUSINESS CHALLENGES

During their ongoing collaboration with Green Element, Emperor encountered two significant challenges. The first involved improving the quality and coverage of data. Initially, Emperor established a standard carbon footprint covering the basic contributing activities and began gathering data from internal systems and suppliers; this helped to identify weaknesses in data quality. The second challenge centred around developing an internal strategy to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions amid rapid business growth.

HOW GREEN ELEMENT HELPED

Emperor’s partnership with Green Element was led by Senior Sustainability Analyst Michael Barnes. Michael guided Emperor through several projects that contributed towards reducing their overall environmental impact.

COLLABORATION

To address the data quality issue, Green Element collaborated closely with Emperor to enhance their understanding of internal systems and high-quality data collection practices.

MATERIALITY ASSESSMENT:

Green Element conducted a materiality assessment of Emperor’s financial ledger from the baseline year, precisely quantifying all relevant activities. A materiality assessment is a process of identifying and quantifying the significant GHG emissions sources and activities within an organisation’s operations. The goal of this assessment is to determine which emission sources are the biggest contributors to an organisation’s overall carbon footprint, allowing them to prioritise and focus their efforts on addressing these high-impact areas.

CARBON FOOTPRINT REPORTING:

Green Element provides Emperor with an annual Carbon Footprint report, featuring tailored recommendations to target specific hotspots effectively. The report is a comprehensive document that provides a detailed analysis and assessment of Emperor’s GHG emissions. It presents the total amount of GHGs emitted directly and indirectly as a result of Emperor’s activities and services. As part of the report, our team provides tailored recommendations to target specific hotspots effectively.

SCENARIO MODELLING:

Green Element developed a ‘scenario model’ for the four identified carbon hotspots of Business Travel, Commuting, Printing, and Office Electricity, evaluating the impact of various actions on reducing GHG emissions. Scenario modelling is a process that involves creating and evaluating different hypothetical situations or scenarios to understand their potential impact on GHG emissions. This modelling technique helps organisations like Emperor to access various actions and strategies they could implement to reduce their carbon footprint.

SCIENCE-BASED TARGETS:

Green Element guided Emperor through the process of setting science-based targets. As a result, Emperor has officially submitted their scope 1 and 2 near-term science-based targets along with their net-zero target with the Science Based Targets initiative. The insights gained from the carbon footprints and materiality assessment will underpin the development of a clear and focused carbon reduction strategy moving forward.

NEXT STEPS

Continuing their commitment to sustainability, Emperor will measure their GHG emissions annually to capture any year-on-year changes. Moreover, they are undertaking more scenario modelling work to specifically look at quantifying GHG emissions at a project level, ensuring targeted actions to reduce their carbon footprint effectively.

Green Element is further supporting Emperor by assisting them in their Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) process, the mandatory energy assessment for larger organisations in the UK.

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