The Business Exchange Swindon & Wiltshire Edition 57: October/November 2021 | Page 30

GOING GREEN

SYSTEMAGIC ACHIEVES CARBON NEUTRAL STATUS

Achieving Carbon Neutral Status is no easy task, it takes time, commitment and a complete analysis of every aspect of a business and its processes. James Eades, Owner and Managing Director of Bradford on Avon-based IT Support firm, Systemagic shares his business journey to carbon neutrality.
What process did you go through to get to this stage?
We started by using a free online tool to do an initial assessment. Then we looked at our main source of emissions – our offices – and decided to invest in making them as energy-efficient as possible.
We had a smart heating system installed and we even upgraded our office shower to an energy-efficient model. We also changed our office waste contractor to Hills because they can recycle more of the waste they collect.
Lastly, we started to reduce our travel by doing more jobs remotely where possible. We then used a third party to perform a full carbon footprint assessment.
How long did it take? The actual analysis and certification process only took a few days – it’ s important to have electric, gas and water usage stats to hand. It can then take a bit of time to collate annual figures like business mileage, total spend on cloud computing, Software as a Service [ SaaS ] and web hosting and even how much you’ ve spent on food and drink as a business. But a good assessment partner should walk you through the process.
What is the biggest thing you learnt on the journey?
It was eye-opening to learn how much of a carbon footprint cloud computing and SaaS services – like Microsoft 365 and Xero – have. This area is overlooked on all the free calculators we’ d found but is a huge contributor to Systemagic’ s carbon footprint as I’ m sure it is to many companies.
How are you incorporating offsets and reductions into your plan?
Sadly, using offsets seems to be the only way of getting most businesses to a carbon-neutral state. Even if we’ d moved our office to solar electricity, it would have been impossible to offset the carbon emissions caused by commuting, working from home and using things like Microsoft 365- so offsets are an important part of any carbon neutral programme. What’ s important is to do your due diligence on offset projects and ensure their integrity and transparency.
Which online calculators or tools did you use? We started by using www. carbonfootprint. com which is a free basic calculator. We then worked with Freddie at Minimum Office( www. minimum. eco) who is creating a fantastic tool to make the whole process faster, easier and more accessible.
What tips would you give to anyone else setting out on this journey?
If you’ re going to do it, do it properly!
For more info: www. systemagic. co. uk

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