Delivering for our planet: Understanding our carbon emissions

Europe and ANZ (Australia and New Zealand) were selected as the initial markets for scoping, capturing 70% of the business, with China and the US to follow in FY23.

Getting the business engaged in the process was the initial priority for Scott. President of Scott Europe and North America, Aaron Vanwalleghem, says that having people understand the ‘why’ was an important foundation.

“Working with Tadpole, we ran a series of educational workshops that our employees could attend. We gave an overview of global warming, greenhouse gases, local context, what governments are doing and ended with how Scott is going to play its part in the long-term future of our planet.”

Smaller teams in each market were then engaged in the boundary-setting process. Following the ISO 14064-1 Standard for the quantification and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions and removals, this involved understanding each market’s physical boundaries and emissions sources. The output was a clear plan for exactly what data was needed to be collected by each market.

“Because 2020 and 2021 were impacted by COVID-19, we needed to use FY19 as our base year for data collection to present the most accurate picture of a typical operating year,”

Scott measured three types of emissions: direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (Scope 1), indirect GHG emissions from purchased energy (Scope 2) and indirect GHG emissions from other sources (Scope 3). The specific emissions sources are detailed in the table below.

“Collecting the required data and doing so retrospectively, was a big undertaking,”

“We’re extremely proud of how our people really got behind our desire to do better as a business. The collection process required commitment and effort from many people from right across the business, additional to their usual responsibilities, to enable us to understand our carbon footprint. The engagement has been incredible, and we’d like to thank and recognise the many people who have contributed.”

As with anything new, there were a few challenges along the way

“While using FY19 as a baseline made complete sense to eliminate the pandemic factor, it also presented some limitations,”

“Freight data included in our preliminary carbon footprint is limited to transfers between our sites. Going forward, we have developed a process that will capture inwards and outwards freight data. These emissions will be included in our 2023 carbon footprint.”

External audit partners in Europe and ANZ have verified the processes and data used to develop Scott’s preliminary carbon footprints, see below.

“We have measured our emissions to better understand the scale of our carbon footprint, the impact of our actions and, ultimately, to identify our opportunities for improvement. From the work we have completed to date, we have already recognised some opportunities for reduction improvements. For example, our electricity usage, air travel, accommodation and travel in company cars. These will be obvious starting points in our emissions reduction plan.”

The business anticipates that the remaining carbon footprints for China and US will be completed and verified by the end of 2022.

By mid FY23, Scott will be in a strong position to share the carbon footprint for the total Scott business, as well as our objectives and actions for reduction.