This year, TEP’s staff have chosen to offset their carbon footprint by supporting a project that safeguards endangered species such as the Capuchin Monkey, Black Bearded Saki, The Little Spotted Cat and Giant Otter.
Since its foundation, TEP has always been mindful of its responsibility to manage the company’s impact on the environment. As a result, in 2010 TEP became the only environmental consultancy to offer full scope carbon neutrality under British Standard PAS 2060.
Every year since, TEP’s Green Team reviews our carbon footprint to monitor and help get us closer to carbon net zero. This year’s report has documented an 18% increase in TEP’s carbon emissions. This can be largely attributed to the growth in our employee numbers, resulting in a 26% increase in business travel and 28% increase in commuting mileage. These two categories alone make up the majority of TEP’s CO2 emissions, with 229 tCO2e out of our 374 ton total in 2017/18.
To combat this, our Green team does a fantastic job implementing changes to help reduce our footprint. Changes such as: purchasing carbon neutral stationary, switching to LED lighting units, introducing hybrid powered pool cars and offering low carbon loans to our staff. However, to honour our pledge to carbon neutrality, every year TEP’s emissions need to be offset through Carbon Credit schemes from organisations such as EcoAct; who help companies deliver sustainable solutions.
This year our staff have chosen to support the Floresta de Portel project in Brazil. The project aims to protect and preserve the Amazonian ecosystems through the education and establishment of sustainable business practices for local inhabitants.
The project places a strong emphasis on working with the local communities to create prosperous and sustainable livelihoods, by safeguarding existing endangered species such as the Capuchin Monkey and allowing natural environmental recovery. The project also provides land tenure, allowing locals to claim rights to the land and prevent logging and large scale farming. It creates jobs to manage and monitor the health of the surrounding forest, as well as energy-efficient cook stoves to reduce reliance on felling trees. This is a fantastic project that we are proud to be supporting, it also fulfils three of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals:
08 – Decent Work and Economic Growth
13 – Climate Action and
15 – Life on Land
Very few significant journeys are ever short or direct but TEP is committed to becoming carbon net zero and helping other companies to do so along the way.
