As part of our ongoing commitment to supporting the natural world, Innovation Visual has pledged to monitor and negate our carbon footprint. To do that we will reduce and stop the carbon production that we can control and offset what we cannot.
We are committed to releasing these figures every 6 months so as to be as transparent as possible in our efforts for our team and stakeholders.
Our mission is to actively work towards reducing our carbon dioxide production, both as a company and as individuals in the team. We will contribute to both local and international initiatives in supporting the conservation and protection of the natural world in meaningful ways as well as through charitable donations.
In the first half of 2022 our commuting, business travelling and paper consumption, has resulted in the following carbon footprint:
|
Activity |
CO2 Kg 2022 |
|
Travel |
4708.58 |
|
Paper |
191.81 |
|
TOTAL |
4900.39 |
Innovation Visual has grown even more and welcomed many more people to our wonderful team of Digital Marketing experts. With hybrid working meaning that our team now works largely remotely, with colleagues in Poland and France, we have again made huge efforts to keep our measurable CO2 and waste production as low as possible. However the demands on the business to grow and for our team to travel to meetings, training and industry events means that our CO2 production has been negatively impacted. In the first six months of 2022 we have already exceeded the full annual production of 2020, and are on track to exceed the 2021 total by the end of the year.
Whilst looking at our company growth, the production is still in proportion with our company size and, when looking at per capita output of CO2, we have reduced this to 217.96Kg per person as opposed to 219.83kg in 2021, and more than 500kg per employee in the previous year!
We make every effort to ensure that every journey taken is only done so if completely necessary and even though our travel has increased when compared to previous periods we aim to keep the kilometres travelled to as low as possible.
Out team works largely from home and the continued impact of this on our Carbon footprint is immense. That said it is very clear that the recent increase in flights has had a direct and severe impact on our CO2 production.
During the first half of 2022 we have produced 16.35 domestic bin loads of waste, which can be broken down into the following:
|
Waste |
Domestic bin loads |
|
Landfill |
4.1 |
|
Recycled |
12.25 |
|
Total |
16.35 |
This is well under 50% of the waste produced in 2021, which was 46.3 and so we would seem to be well on our way to beating our previous years waste production. However, this figure does not include the waste that was produced by the team members working away from the office.
We have so far produced 1.56Kg (1.25 bin loads) of plastic but, due to researching alternative recycling options, all of this is now being recycled, with none of this plastic waste going to landfill!
Paper purchases have been recorded by weight.
Producing 100,000 sheets of A4 paper (499kg) from new sources requires over 8 trees and has a ‘life-cycle carbon footprint’ of 6 tonnes of CO2. This includes the process of creating the paper and disposing of it 8 times (on average paper can only be recycled around 7 times).
The small number of paper purchases in 2022 have demonstrated our continuing trend in using online documents wherever possible. And have been able to use some of our remaining small stock of paper supplies from previous years. Purchases made include printing paper and greetings cards.
We have so far produced 191.81kg of CO2 as a result of our paper purchases, which is well under a third of the total produced in 2021 (675.27kg), so we can be confident that we will be able to keep this figure low for the remainder of the reporting period.
This does not account for any paper that entered our offices by other means, such as via the mail. Any paper items which were disposed of have been included in the waste calculations under non-plastic recycling
We continue to use secure online software for the vast majority of both our internal and external calls which helps us to reduce our travel requirements. Where face to face meetings are requested, we try to ensure that team members travel together, when appropriate and safe to do so, in order to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
We are very proud of the work of our dedicated team of Digital Marketeers. Their hard work continues to pay off and has been recognised by the European Search Awards where we won ‘Best Use of Search – Not for Profit’ for our work supporting the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.
Printing on paper is kept to a minimum and only when absolutely necessary. Our eSignature software means that even sensitive documents can be securely signed, without the need for printing or posting. This action has been strongly evidenced in our paper CO2 figures.
We will continue to purchase the most environmentally sensitive products wherever possible
Our waste production has reduced since 2021 and now three quarters of all waste produced goes to be recycled rather than to landfill.
We will continue to encourage our team and any visitors to be conscious in their decisions when printing, purchasing items and recycling so that we can continue to reduced what we produce.
Despite our efforts to reduce our CO2 as much as possible, we have produced some through our business activities. Once we have the final annual figure, we will offset this production with a charitable organisation who can use our donation to help those in need around the globe whilst combating climate change.
Carbon Offsets to Alleviate Poverty, or COTAP tackles climate change and global poverty by using money from personal and business offsetting.
Team IV held a litter picking day to clean up a local beauty spot and incorporate some team building. A brilliant day was had by all and we collected 12 big bags of litter from the towpaths, parks, footpaths and roadsides.
Several of the team have pledged to take part in the Canal and River Trust #PlasticsChallenge. We will pick up one piece of plastic each time we visit a river or canal to help remove all plastic watse from our waterways.
Innovation Visual is committed to supporting the natural world and contributes to various charitable organisations.
As part of our commitment to the preservation of the natural world, Innovation Visual is dedicated to donating a minimum of 1% of our annual turnover to environmental charities through the 1% for the Planet initiative, of which we have been a member since 2012.
Having had a personal commitment to the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation (DSWF) for many years, it made sense that DSWF would be the first charity to be supported by Innovation Visual through our 1% for the Plant donations.
This wonderful charity support projects throughout Asia and Africa in the protection of endangered wild animals, through the use of conservation, education and fighting wildlife crime. Their fundraising goes directly to the conservation projects and anti poaching initiatives involved in the protection of these vulnerable animals, including tigers, rhinos, painted dogs and snow leopards.
In addition to a new eCommerce website, Innovation Visual also continues to support the DSWF though a discounted day rate.
In our own back yard – the Innovation Visual team are proud corporate sponsors of the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) Trust. Based in the UK, this charity works both nationally and internationally to conserve and protect reptiles and amphibians, through education and conservation initiatives, to protect our natural world.
