Completing your first carbon footprint while engaging employees
About the Client
Work & Co is a global technology and design company that creates transformational digital strategies and products for a suite of large multinational organizations. With 400 employees and offices in the U.S., Europe and Latin America, they use an iterative process —based on rapid prototyping, continuous testing, and fewer large meetings— to develop award-winning e-commerce platforms, mobile apps, AI tools and more.
The Challenges: Navigating through your first carbon footprint
Work & Co prioritized assessing its first carbon footprint in order to help reach its goal of carbon neutrality. The company aimed to inform, educate and encourage proactive action and corporate social responsibility by measuring their carbon footprint, and then communicating it to employees.
This required a comprehensive data collection strategy and an accurate breakdown of their scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions. Agendi’s challenge was to help Work & Co calculate their carbon footprint, identify emission reduction opportunities, and ultimately offset their emissions by empowering Work & Co to choose the best offset program option available.
The Solution: A holistic and transparent carbon management strategy that authentically engages employees
To begin the carbon management process, Agendi provided Work & Co with a crash course in carbon accounting that introduced the fundamentals in carbon accounting and management. Work & Co’s data collection process enabled them to accurately determine their relevant scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, and Agendi provided expert judgement to fill any data gaps. To eliminate their emissions, Agendi recommended reduction measures including installing LED lighting and occupancy sensors, use of virtual meetings over travel when possible, continuing to travel economy, and increasing recycling efforts in-office through reusable water bottles and switching to all recycled materials for catering supplies.
To authentically engage their employees, Work & Co prioritized transparency and shared their carbon footprint results at an all-staff meeting. To ensure the focus on becoming a more environmentally friendly organization connected to causes team members are passionate about, Work & Co also enabled employees to choose which offset program to fund. The group voted to support a Clean Cookstove project in Kenya and a REDD+ project in Brazil, certified by the Gold Standard and Verra respectively. Lastly, Work & Co invited employee suggestions for future environmental initiatives, which included increased recycling efforts, eliminating more waste within their catering program, and supporting reforestation initiatives.
Work & Co was able to both offset its entire footprint through programs and achieve carbon neutrality. Since carbon neutrality is a journey rather than a destination, Agendi is excited to continue collaborating with Work & Co to reduce and offset future emissions.
