Back in September, Chrissie and Hannah took a trip to Manchester to attend a Carbon Literacy training day, hosted by Positive Planet. Carbon Literacy is the knowledge and awareness of the carbon impacts of daily life, and the training provided us with the science behind climate change, the tools to influence others to take action, and empowered us to continue to take action.
On completion of the course, we were tasked with developing our carbon literacy pledges (our commitment to reducing our carbon impacts), which are reviewed and certified by the Carbon Literacy Project. So, we are taking our pledges public and declaring our commitments to keep us accountable, and hopefully inspire others to make pledges that really transform the way they do things.
For a bit of background, we already have our own carbon reduction commitments in line with the Paris Agreement to reduce our emissions by 50% by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050, alongside our environmental sustainability policy for running our business. However, in addition to our existing business operational commitments, we have introduced the following pledges:
All full-time staff members will attend a Climate Literacy Project ‘Train the Trainer’ Training, ensuring we can pass on knowledge to our clients and the events industry to support a lower carbon future.
Our emissions for 2022 were 12 mtCO2e (scope 1, 2 and 3) as we are a small business, and our existing reduction roadmap is in line with the Paris Agreement. However, we would like to introduce a new roadmap of 25% reduction (3 mtCO2e) by end of 2025, 50% by 2028 and Net Zero by 2040.
We will gain ISO 14001 certification by end of 2024. Gaining our ISO certification will support in us identifying where we can make ambitious reductions in our business operations to support this new reduction roadmap.
We pledge to offset 150% of Worlds Better’s annual emissions for the next 10 years.
We pledge to develop a sustainable procurement toolkit, to ensure that we and our clients can source the most carbon-conscious suppliers.
On behalf of the clients we have at Worlds Better, we have an opportunity to make a wider impact in the reduction of emissions and waste. For the work on behalf of our clients, we have pledged the following:
We will measure baselines and make savings of at least 2,500 mtCO2e in the next year (by September 2024) for the work we complete on behalf of our clients. We will measure the savings we make on each event we support, and report on them using our impact measurement platform TRACE.
We pledge to provide at least 500,000 delegates with a sustainable event experience (by September 2024). We will do this by working with our clients who are delivering large scale events all over the world, support them to apply sustainable practices, communicate what we have applied to delegates, and we will report on the number of delegates engaged and the carbon savings associated.
We pledge to develop an educational library of content to provide training to our customers and to the wider event industry on carbon literacy and the implementation of sustainable practices. This will include tools to influence stakeholders and specific sustainable practices relevant to a selection of event areas including venue, AV, printing, staffing, and catering.
We look forward to bringing you on our journey of achieving these pledges, and we plan to document an honest view of our progress.
