Written by Peter-Jan Roose
We are finally here: BrightWolves has set its Science-Based Targets! As a wolfpack, we aim to reduce our absolute 2020 emissions by 42% by 2030. This means our footprint will be reduced from 76 tons CO2eq/year in Scope 1 & 2 to 44 tons CO2eq/year, regardless of our company’s growth. On top of that, we will reduce our Scope 3 emissions as far as possible.
Yes, we are ambitious! Yes, we are proud!
Why are we ambitious?
As a company working on sustainable transformation with clients, we have to ‘eat our own dog food’ if we truly want to inspire change. This is something we strongly believed in at the beginning of our sustainable transformation journey and it is something we still believe in today. This belief is only fortified by the companies and networks we interact with.
At the beginning of this year, we joined BACA, the Belgian Alliance for Climate Action. Meeting the team behind BACA and participating in their webinars on Science-Based Targets showed us time after time how important it is for every company to be ambitious with its targets. With their tailored roadmap for SMEs, SBTi and BACA want to give power and ownership not only to the big fish in the market, but also to smaller companies.
Following that SME roadmap, we decided to go for a target that is aligned with the Paris Agreement and based on our absolute emissions. This means that we want to contribute to limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5°C. It also conveys that we want to reduce an absolute amount of CO2eq emissions/year, regardless of our growth. While our absolute emissions in Scope 1 & 2 are aimed to go down by 42%, our forecasted emissions show that emissions per employee might go down by almost 90%. We believe that this absolute way of defining an emission reduction target is the most honest way, as it eliminates commercial growth used an excuse to justify an increase in emissions.
Why are we proud?
Firstly, we are proud of our approach in setting these targets. We followed a stepwise, quantified approach which has now been translated into our very own Footprint Reduction Playbook.
1. We started by defining our current footprint using our fleet data, office data and thorough research, always following the guidelines of the GHG Protocol, BACA and SBTi. For this step, we were glad to capitalize our in-house modelling experts to forecast our emissions in the upcoming years using Excel. Adjustable variables allow our model to estimate the impact of growth, our reduction initiatives, our mobility solutions etc.
2. Armed with our calculations and forecasting, we made our business case for BrightWolves’ management. Our joined conclusion: “Let’s be as ambitious as possible and convince our network to do the same.” We submitted our application at the Science-Based Target initiative, and that is where we are now.
3. Our next step will be to use our forecasting model to define the main actions to take on our emission reduction journey. For each action, a timeline and goal will be defined which will be followed up together with the rest of the company’s KPIs.
Secondly, we are proud of the culture at BrightWolves. Our journey towards our Science-Based Targets has involved many Wolves and interns over the past year. Each of them contributed to our journey by adding their insights and knowledge to make our targets even crisper. It shows us that this topic is inspiring to our Wolves.
Luckily the journey does not end here, it has only just started!
Have you considered setting targets for your company? Join us on this journey and let’s take the big leap together!
For more information you can always reach out!