Sustainability

Captain Planet

Reducing negative impact on the planet

Businesses have a negative impact on our planet by default. Offices, commutes, and power consumption, all create a carbon footprint. We want to reduce this negative impact on the planet.

Minimizing our impact

In March 2020, we hired a Captain Planet, a role that takes the lead in minimizing our impact. In 2020, we focused primarily on understanding our carbon footprint and thinking of ways we could reduce it. In 2021, our focus was on insight and having conversations about carbon reduction. We already have compensated everything from 2021 and 2022 is the year we will fully offset our past emissions. We will become carbon positive!

Broader than just carbon

We invested in a lot of projects which all have a positive impact on carbon reduction in the air, but we are looking broader than just carbon. These projects also focus on other sustainable goals of the united nation, because they are all connected.

Projects

Projects like stimulating green energy by buying Guarantees of Origin (GOO) certificates. Planting trees in the Netherlands, Costa Rics and Bolivia, stimulating biodiversity in Burkina Fase and planting a foodforest in the Netherlands and Madagaskar.

Improving cookstoves for Guinea and giving clear water access in Laos and Rwanda.

But also internally we have projects like actively talking about changing our personal habits with climate conversations, our company buying habits by trying to buy only social and sustainable products.

CO2 emissions and energy

Our carbon footprint related to our certification consists of:

  • Energy supply offices: both electricity and heat
  • Business travel: car fleet, public transport, and flying
  • Commuting
  • Servers and cloud: our digital footprint

Our main goal is to reduce our footprint and compensate for what remains. In order to continuously improve this process, we are Level 3 CO2 performance ladder certified by KIWA.

CO2 footprint (tonnes CO2)

2019 2020 2021
Housing (gas and electricity) 119,0 136,4 145,6
– Missed data related to housing 82,3 – –
Servers and cloud 80,1 78,7 88,1
Business travel 63,9 24,1 19,6
Commuting 109,2 31,1 3,5
– Green certificates 0 -185 -189
Total usage 454,5 85,9 67,8

Curious to see our progress?

Every year, we report about the progress we’re making when it comes to reducing our CO2 footprint.

Check out our progress report

Actions we take

Most important reduction initiatives

Our most important CO2 reduction initiatives include:

  • Embedding sustainability in strategy
  • A green and social purchasing strategy
  • Sharing knowledge internally and organizing workshops to raise awareness about climate, sustainability, and purchasing
  • Facilitating working from home, in culture and with budgets
  • Stimulating the use of bicycles and public transport; 7 out of 10 colleagues traveled by bike or public transport in 2021
  • Increasing the sustainability of our business transport/car fleet; we currently own 13 cars, of which 9 are fully electric, 1 plug-in hybrid, 2 hybrids, and 1 gasoline, with a goal of being focile-free in 2025
  • Charging cars with green energy
  • Visualizing CO2 emissions in the reports
  • Flights only when necessary
  • Compensating for our electricity usage with local, sustainably generated energy
  • Writing blogs which hopefully help other companies to also start reducing and/or compensating