Scope for the Best

Burlodge Builds a Program Around Reducing its Carbon Emissions

There’s no disputing that climate change is not well underway, it’s at a tipping point. An overwhelming amount of scientific evidence points towards irreversible change in our world today unless we take dramatic action to reduce our carbon emissions. At Burlodge, we believe that many companies want to institute measures that can make a difference, but they simply don’t know where to start.

?We’ve taken strides to reduce our carbon emissions by following the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (www.ghgprotocol.org), an initiative that classifies emissions under three specific ‘scopes.’ This framework helps to delineate areas where actions can be taken and provides a framework for better measuring and managing sustainable efforts.

The scope model is designed to classify carbon emissions through three distinct levels. This model promotes a measurable response, which allows businesses to track their progress over time. Being able to quantify change is an important part of building sustainable systems into operations while clearly communicating initiatives to company stakeholders.

Scope 1

Scopes 1 and 2 are far more within a company’s capacity to change because they exert a level of direct control over them. Scope 1, for example, are company owned and controlled emissions. Changes can be introduced directly to mitigate emissions at this level. Switching over Burlodge’s vehicle fleet to hybrid or full electric vehicles, for example, would qualify as Scope 1 action

Scope 2

Scope 2 emissions refer to those that are effectively ‘owned’ by the company but that are purchased from a provider. Otherwise referred to as indirect emissions, these would be emissions produced by energy providers, for example. Burlodge would account for the consumption of purchased electricity, steam, heat and cooling in its calculations. ?

?Scope 3

This is by far the more challenging of stages. Scope 3 refers to all the indirect emissions that affect the company, both from upstream and downstream activities – from the goods it purchases to the disposal of its goods at the end of the life cycle. This encompasses an expansive list and is far more challenging for Burlodge to invoke change. It requires the company to make important choices and to even advocate for change.

A sampling of other items that fall under Scope 3 include:

Purchased Goods and Services – items that are used in the production-related products (materials and components) and non-production related, such as office furniture and supplies.

Business Travel and Employee Commuting – it may have been diminished during Covid with people working from home and Zoom meetings taking place, but how will it change as people return to the office? Consider the emissions produced by the resurgence of these activities.?

Waste Generated in Operations – These are the emissions related to waste generated and sent to landfills and wastewater treatment sites.?

Use of Sold Equipment – what will the emissions be from the product usage over its lifetime and then, beyond that, there is the end-of-life treatment for the equipment, which factors in how the product is disposed of. In Burlodge’s case, we do have some product buy-backs that allow us to recycle or repurpose certain equipment.

This is just a representative sample. To understand how comprehensive the Scope 3 measures extend, we encourage you to visit www.ghgprotocol.org/standards/scope-3-standard. Still, you get the picture – companies are encouraged to assess their entire value chain and identify where emission reductions can occur.

To ensure Burlodge can adopt these measures in a manageable and meaningful way, we’re taking the steps to address Scope 1 and 2 issues at this point. Upon making progress on this front, our intention is to take a closer look at how we enact changes on the Scope 3 category and continue to work towards a more sustainable approach to our operations.

Make no mistake, the effort to undertake an inventory of carbon emissions requires time and effort. At Burlodge we feel it’s imperative that we take definitive action towards reducing our carbon footprint. Already we see that small acts around our operations can make a measurable improvement, and we intend to give this effort greater momentum as time goes on. And further, we hope that others connected to Burlodge – both clients and suppliers – see that even incremental changes now lead to the potential of larger benefits down the road.?