For the last four years, we have been working with Planet Mark, an internationally recognised sustainability organisation, to measure our carbon footprint.

We started reporting on our emissions in 2019/20 in our four UK offices across scopes 1 and 2, and some elements of scope 3. Since then, we have been working to increase our reporting boundary and collect more accurate data across our multiple jurisdictions to ensure we have a full picture of our environmental impact.

Our expanded carbon footprint reporting

We have also integrated further emissions categories into our reporting – such as employee commuting –
so we can monitor the impact of travelling to and from work, and purchased goods and services, to build a picture of our supply chain impact.

This means we have now measured our emissions in full for a normal, business-as-usual year. This has resulted in our total carbon footprint increasing with the inclusion of more offices and emissions categories.

As predicted, our purchased goods and services emissions make up the largest proportion of our overall carbon footprint – a fact that is true of most, if not all, professional services firms.

Our carbon reporting journey

Now we have built a picture of our supply chain data, we can identify material areas for improvement and develop a strategy around supplier management and engagement to ensure alignment with
our carbon reduction pathway.

We have identified material areas of carbon impact, such as business travel, which increased due to a return to flying post-Covid. We want to use this as a springboard for action and will be updating our business travel policy and publishing a set of internal 'Green Travel Guidelines' which will form part of net zero action plan due to be published in 2024.

The Sustainability Action Network will also be launching a series of education campaigns in 2024 to help people understand the impact of their travel decisions on the environment.

As this is the first year that we have been able to capture the full picture of our firm-wide carbon footprint, we have made the decision to re-baseline for 2022/23. This will ensure we have an accurate benchmark from which to set our carbon reduction targets.

As for many organisations, the Covid-19 pandemic meant data for reporting years 2020/21 and 2021/22 was not an accurate reflection of business-as-usual activities.

Cross-border data collection is a complex task, however improving the scope of our reporting boundaries has been a driving factor in our mission for completeness and transparency. For the first time in 2023, we reported on all Fieldfisher integrated offices from the reporting period (1 May 2022 – 30 April 2023) to ensure all material emissions are accounted for.