We have a responsibility to reduce our carbon emissions as a business by understanding all applicable Scope 1, Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, and taking credible steps towards reducing them in line with the international Paris Agreements objective to achieve net zero emissions before 2050.
Why this matters to NCC Group
It’s critical that we protect our future business from emerging risks associated with climate change and comply with current and emerging environmental regulations. This will enable us to be a responsible supply chain partner, focusing our efforts on supporting our clients with their cyber security challenges and minimising the impact of that on their emissions.
We know the importance of net zero transition to our colleagues and it’s an important consideration for attracting future talent too.
Our approach
At this early stage of the journey, we are focusing our efforts on understanding the source of our full emissions and putting in place processes that will improve our data collection and reliability and enable future science-based targets to be set. As a global professional services organisation, with just over 2,000 colleagues employed, we partner with experts where appropriate to support each stage of the maturing journey and to map our net zero transition plan.
Executive and Board engagement
In 2022 at the start of our new financial year, we invited Planet Mark to run a workshop with the Executive Committee and then with the NCC Group plc Board members too. This workshop gave participants the opportunity to reflect on the journey ahead, using the baseline data from our first Planet Mark certification, and to commit to embedding net zero transition into business decision making. In January 2023, Non-Executive Director and Head of the Audit Committee, Lynn Fordham, was appointed the Board person with responsibility for sustainability.
Leased office buildings
In FY23, we significantly improved our leased office data collection, including adding in data centres, through improved landlord engagement and accounting for all relevant office spaces.
We also took decisions to close, enhance or reduce leased buildings in line with a strategic business review, to assess what physical spaces we need to service our clients better.
Through an improved decision-making process we’ve set a standard for all future locations with greater landlord engagement on their transition plans to net zero as a requirement. See page 19 for an example of this in action with our new office in Manila.
Colleague commuting
As part of our materiality assessment, we incorporated a questionnaire for colleagues to collect commuting data for enhanced Scope 3 emissions reporting. Unfortunately, we didn’t achieve the 40% participation rate that was needed to enable us to include this in our FY23 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) report. The data we did capture, however, has given us a data point from which to build into our ongoing colleague engagement plan, and we will continue to work on this to improve participation.
We introduced a green car lease scheme in the UK and are phasing out the UK fleet programme, transitioning eligible colleagues to this new scheme.
Purchased goods and services
In early 2023, an exercise to gather supplier-specific GHG emissions from our suppliers yielded a poor response rate, which we know is something many organisations struggle with. Following GHG Protocol guidance on Scope 3 Category 1 Purchased Goods and Services, we will seek to explore other data collection methods to establish a baseline for our FY24 reporting period.
Carbon Disclosure Project
We signed up to the Carbon Disclosure Project to make it easier for our clients to understand and account for our emissions as part of the service we offer, but also to enable us to gather our significant supplier emissions. Our first report is due early in 2024 from the submission we made in July 2023.
Our progress
In addition to the above, as part of our preparation for initial reporting against the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) framework, we appointed Planet Mark to certify our greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Now in Year 2 of this reporting, we have experienced a temporary increase in our total emissions; however, we reduced our emissions per colleague by 4.6%.
We also undertook Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS) audits in the UK and the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) audit of our Delft leased office in both FY23 and FY24.
Our future and ambition
Our ambition is to set credible science-based targets that enable us to define how we will achieve net zero emissions before 2050.
To continue the journey toward our net zero ambition in the year ahead, our focus is on:
- Enhancing our Scope 3 emissions by reporting on Purchased Goods & Services and colleague commuting.
- Identifying opportunities to transition to renewable energy sources for our leased office buildings and data centres.
- Procuring a new travel tool, which improves how we book (lower carbon options) travel and report on the subsequent emissions.
- Launching our new colleague engagement climate change programme, helping to educate and embed conscious decision-making at every level of the organisation.
