Environment
We are investing in becoming an environmentally-conscious business and want to be part of the leading edge of suppliers within the digital sector who are committing to becoming carbon net zero, in advance of the 2050 deadline set by the UK Government for all UK businesses. By reducing our carbon emissions and offsetting the remainder to become carbon net zero, we are acting responsibly and playing our part in limiting global temperature rise by 1.5 degrees to avoid the worse effects of climate change.
We started on this journey in 2022 because it aligns with the ethical ethos of the people that make up Reuben Digital. We are part of the digital sector that, almost innocuously, emits 3.7% of total greenhouse gas emissions and consumes 4.2% of global primary energy. [1] Compare this to the much-maligned global aviation industry which actually only accounts for 2.4% of carbon dioxide emissions! [2]
Reuben Digital has signed the Plant Based Treaty, a campaign to put food systems at the forefront of combating the climate crisis. Moving forward, we are committed to all future company paid-for, client entertainment to be sustainably sourced and 100% plant-based, where possible. We have also signed the Sustainable Web Manifesto which is a public declaration of a shared commitment to create a sustainable internet. In addition, we have joined Tech Zero, a group for tech companies committed to climate action, pledging to measure and publish our scope 1-3 emissions.
We have researched and measured our impact on the planet, as well as reviewed our working practices to be more environmentally-friendly using lower carbon technology. This is a long-term goal to move towards a sustainable business model. Along the way, we will challenge ourselves - on what values the company stands for, and the beliefs we are guided by, and the way we do business. Our progress is published every quarter in the updates below and our Carbon Report (first published in 2024) is updated every Spring.
- We have linked our Monday.com account to a Tree-Nation project and have started to grow a forest to offset some of Reuben Digital’s CO2 footprint. We use Monday.com to plan and schedule the team’s work. Every time, a team member marks a unit of work complete, Tree-Nation will plant a tree! So far, we have planted 160 trees in places including Madagascar, Tanzania and Kenya and over their lifetime, they will capture over 5 tonnes of CO2. There are good and bad aspects of ‘gamifying’ climate action, and certainly much discussion around planting trees to offset carbon emissions in general (see our recent LinkedIn post on this very subject). However, gamifying our task management platform here at Reuben has encouraged our team to stay productive whilst knowing that their work contributes in a small way to tackling the big problem of climate change.
- Always looking ahead, we have renewed our 100% renewable electricity contract with Valda Energy – that’s green electricity sorted until 2028! Did you know that energy companies are starting to offer green gas tariffs? It’s early days with the development of producing green biomethane gas made from grass cuttings. When the gas burns, carbon will go into the atmosphere, but it will be reabsorbed when the grass grows back creating a sustainable natural cycle. Ecotricity estimate that if we grow grass on all the marginal land in Britain, we’ll be able to make enough green gas to supply the entire country. The Green Team here at Reuben Digital will certainly be keeping an eye on this innovation, since heat pump technology, as a replacement for gas boilers, isn’t suitable for all properties.
- Ray Stephens and Gill Rixon recently attended the Tech Zero Forum earlier this month, powered by Tech Nation and Octopus Energy. As members of Tech Zero, a consortium of tech companies committed to climate action, it was wonderful to hear from a great range of guest speakers and chat to other tech companies about the challenges of progressing towards carbon net zero. In fact, it was heartening to learn that we aren’t doing too badly at grappling with all the strategic and practical decisions required, along with the complicated and ever-changing considerations in measuring our carbon footprint. Turning Reuben Digital into a sustainable tech company is certainly taking us on a uniquely challenging and rewarding journey.
- Plans are now in place to upgrade our remote-working infrastructure to leverage the latest in VPN and cloud-based solutions. By removing layers of old IT infrastructure, we aim to see a significant reduction in electricity consumption at our Highworth office. First to move onto the new tech will probably be our Indonesian team, with the entire UK staff migrated by the end of December 2024.
- We are currently working on installing the Microsoft Azure Emissions Impact Dashboard to our web servers so that we can monitor the carbon impact of our cloud usage. The Dashboard allows you to track direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions relating to the websites that are hosted on their servers, and also estimates emissions we have avoided by migrating to Microsoft’s green technology. We hope to report on the key findings in the next quarter.
- Over the last couple of months, we have reviewed all of the third-party software and cloud services that we pay for and have evaluated what is essential to our working practices. We’re happy to report that there was very little wastage discovered but it was certainly a useful exercise – cancelling monthly subscriptions that are no longer needed are an easy way of reducing scope 3 carbon emissions a little, as well as saving money.
- Ray recently travelled to a European gift card conference in the Netherlands and let the ‘train take the strain’ from Swindon all the way to Amsterdam. Eurostar calculates that taking their service from London to Amsterdam emits 94% less CO2 as compared to flying – that’s 3.9kg of CO2 on the train as compared with 70.9kg per passenger on a plane. To top it off, Ray hired a bicycle to get around Amsterdam once he had arrived – altogether a great example of our sustainable travel policy in action.
- We have published our first Carbon Report which covers the years 2022 and 2023. This sets our base year as 2022 and explains our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions in detail. We have also set targets for the years ahead, as we work towards carbon net zero by 2050. Read our Carbon Report here.
- The Green Team have started to conduct an office working and IT efficiency audit, researching ways to increase performance on our PCs, whilst reducing power consumption. This will be continued into the next quarter.
- We have finetuned the programming for the central heating in our Highworth office, ensuring that we don’t heat the office over the weekend.
- Thermal blinds have been bought for the office, which can be drawn overnight to retain heat in the winter, and also during the day in the summer to reflect heat from the sun and keep our office environment cooler without the need for fans or air conditioning.
- The office move around the corner to Highworth’s High Street has raised multiple opportunities to design a more efficient office environment:
- We were able to upcycle a lot of the building materials to save landfill waste. This included moving and reusing the existing kitchen from one floor to another, reusing existing toilets and sinks, water heater, cabling and reclaimed timber.
- Energy-efficient LED lighting was installed in all areas of the new office. The new lights are motion sensitive, automatically switching on and off depending on whether the room is in use or not.
- Our new office has a much newer and more efficient gas boiler, with fully programmable timer and thermostat. As winter draws on, we will be evaluating the need for thermal blinds to retain heat overnight and have subsequently installed them on all main windows of the office. Over the winter we will be comparing the new office’s energy consumption with last year’s consumption at the old office.
- We are on a 100% renewables electricity tariff with Valda Energy.
- We have formed a Green Team, a dedicated and multidisciplinary group of employees who work together on climate action and, more broadly, sustainability initiatives in a company. The group will meet every 2 months.
- Reuben Digital has started working with Ecologi, a B-Corp certified environmental organisation that helps companies and individuals measure their carbon emissions and facilitates the funding of carbon offset projects and tree planting around the world. Integrated with our Xero accounts system, it means that we should be able to publish our 2022 and 2023 scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon emissions early in the New Year and subsequently start to set targets to reduce these. We were also able to purchase our first carbon credits, 12 tonnes of Co2e in fact, to offset Ray and Mark's flights out to our Indonesian office (see more under Investment in Employees).
- We have written a Sustainable Transport Policy – read it here.
- We have reorganised and republicised the office recycling and waste procedures so that bins are clearly labelled and the Highworth Team know exactly what can be recycled.