Scope 0 - taking responsibility for your intangible impacts
Scope 0 - taking responsibility for your intangible impacts
The measurement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions catagorised into scope 1, 2 and 3 have become part of every day business speak. Even if companies aren’t yet set up to quantify their emissions with much accuracy, most of us are by now familiar with the concept that there are different types of GHG to be measured, tracked and accounted for. Even if scope 3 gets complicated around the edges, the fundamental thing to remember is that scopes represent a measurement of tangible output through our activities. Put simply – you can put a number to what it is you are assessing.
Scope 0 offers an additional consideration that is both easier to measure as there is no actual emission to calculate and more difficult as the activities to be measured are intangible in their outputs. It is not officially recognised as part of the Greenhouse Gas Protocols but is gaining traction as a concept.
Every company has an intangible impact on the planet. Even those companies that do not produce any real volume of GHG, do not produce physical products or use many resources, they still have an impact.
That impact can come from advertising, a business’ relationship with its community and supply chain contacts, interaction with media or politics, finance, consulting work, and/or industry associations. Therefore, the way the company interacts with the world can be crucial to its engagement in tackling possible solutions for climate change.
Scope 0 isn’t a million miles away from ESG’s “G” ie. governance - as it is a set of standards to which the company holds itself. Viewing policy as part of your overall ‘scopes’ helps integrate these governance decisions into an organisation’s broader strategy for impact mitigation and responsible business management.
4 tips for including scope 0 into your wider esg strategy
1. Be strong in your messaging
The better you communicate what you stand for and why, the easier it is for clients, customers and consumers to get on board. Especially when your business has robust social and environmental goals, an important part of that process is ensuring that your mission is publicly available. Educating your stakeholders as to the importance of ESG is not only crucial in terms of your own brand positioning and authenticity, but plays a central part in helping a much broader push to modify consumer education and habits. Yes, as responsible businesses we engage with many consumers at a values-driven level but it also puts us in a position to engage with consumers who might not yet be so aware that our personal choices have real power – strong messaging that is educational as well as persuasive is the best way to draw poorly informed or skeptical consumers into the fold.
2. Consider your network and partners
Once you have your internal policies in place, putting yourself within a wider community of responsibly minded organisations has the amplifier effect. Not only does it mean that you can be assured that your suppliers and partners share similar values to your own business principals, it gives added momentum to the overall direction of business travel. As businesses group themselves into hubs of responsible practice, it strengthens the message and mission whilst putting pressure on less responsible businesses to put the right reforms and policies in place.
3. Affiliate yourself
Following directly on from ensuring your network aligns to your values, public affiliations with the right certifications and memberships gives credence to your claims. It shows that your policies translate into action, and you don’t shy away from taking responsibility for them. As with everything in the business world, different priorities means that the various affiliations and pledges out there will be more or less useful for you depending on your industry.
Affiliations we’ve come across and recommend include:
Better Business Act– a business led campaign aiming to change UK law to make sure every company in the UK, regardless of size or revenue, puts balancing people, profit and planet at the heart of their purpose and the responsibilities of their directors.
UK Business Climate Hub – a UK government drive to persuade companies to commit to cutting those carbon emissions in half by 2030 and to reach ‘net zero’ by 2050. Once an organization has signed the pledge, they gain access to the Hub’s enormous range of carbon reduction resources and guides.
The Ethical Move – founded by a group of professional marketers who became disillusioned with the manipulative, distorting way marketing sells sells sells using inaccurate pricing claims, insecurity and body shaming to provoke a reaction. The Ethical Move is a pledge-community for organisations who promise to market their products and services ethically, honestly and transparently.
ESGmark® – we couldn’t let the opportunity pass to list ourselves as a valuable partner and certification! We help organisations of all sizes to certify and communicate their ESG efforts while working together to improve upon these efforts. Our process is extremely rigorous so whilst we aim to be as inclusive as possible, we do not compromise our criteria for the sake of growth. We are absolutely passionate about what we do and everything we do is designed to help organisations improve on where they are, increase their positive impact and help their clients and customers to do the same.
4. Bank responsibly
There is ever more evidence available to prove that the large high street and corporate banks continue to funnel trillions of dollars of their clients’ money into fossil fuels related activities. Banks globally have financed fossil fuel industries with $3.8 trillion since 2016’s Paris Agreement. Deutsche Bank, MUFG, and Credit Agricole last year issued bonds for a company that constructs pipelines in Indigenous territories in the Amazon. Whilst there are moves afoot (and certainly some very positive sounding press releases) to ensure the trillions available to the financial world is more conscientiously invested, as a business community we can still take personal responsibility for ‘chaperoning’ our money to the right causes. Green bonds, sustainably focused management funds, eco-pensions and positive impact banks are making green finance ever more accessible to anyone interested in using their savings, revenue and investments in a positive way.
There is no replacement for rigorous, data driven reduction of your GHG emissions but being aware of your Scope 0 emissions makes your efforts as a responsible business all the more integrated as values are aligned with messaging, outreach, community and statistical analysis.
We’d like to thank PlaNet Groups for introducing us to the Scope 0 concept and their methodology.
For more on the traditional interpretation of ESG governance, see our blog and if you are interested in learning more about reducing your carbon emissions, we have guides for anyone WFH and for organisations looking to offset their emissions responsibly.