idverde achieves third successive carbon neutral year

We are also a proud signatory of the UN Climate Neutral Now Scheme. This means all idverde services that are delivered to its clients and customers are carbon neutral, covering the direct emissions generated from all business activities undertaken from January 2020 onwards.

As a leading provider of grounds maintenance and landscape construction services, idverde understands the importance of taking care of the environment. Sustainability plays a key role in everything we do, and as part of our Sustainability Strategy, we carefully consider our environmental impact.

Our commitment to continuing to address the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis grows stronger as we now pivot to start to establish the longer-term plans towards firm Net Zero commitments.

Carbon reduction

Carbon reduction is critical to the business and the wider world in which we operate. Through the development and acquisition of wider knowledge and skills in this area, we can continue to support and adopt less carbon intensive methods to our work.

Not surprisingly, energy efficiency and alternative fuels for transport and premises remain the largest areas of focus within our direct emissions scope.

Working internally to deliver training and awareness through Climate Fresk workshops and other means, we are seeing a much broader take up and adoption in the opportunities to decarbonise our work. Our teams are ready for the changes that we intend to make, and this is an exciting time to be developing our new sustainability strategies.

A more comprehensive and longer-term Net Zero plan is central to this strategy and this plan is being compiled currently with a view to publishing this in 2024.

For the third year in a row, we have seen a reduction in our carbon intensity. The reduction from 2020 to 2022 is almost 13% but there is so much more to do.

As part of adopting and trialling new technologies, we have had some successes and some challenges, but we will continue to identify and adopt effective means of reducing our carbon emissions. Taking the emissions out of our activity is our aim.

Carbon Neutrality

Alongside our efforts to reduce our emissions and develop our longer-term Net Zero solutions, we do recognise that we can make a positive contribution today by continuing to support reputable compensatory schemes for the emissions we create.

This achieves a level of carbon neutrality that is not the overall ambition but a necessary action as we continue to act. We fully recognise that being carbon neutral in itself is not the solution, but we feel that this is a responsible step to take.

Notwithstanding the actions we are taking to reduce our carbon footprint, our business activities from yesterday, today and tomorrow will still have an impact on the planet and we believe that it is our responsibility to compensate for those impacts.

UK action – supporting our forests

It is the case that offsetting credits are often retired in emerging economies where carbon reduction opportunities are greatest. In recognition of our desire to support UK schemes, we have also continued to support The UK’s National Forest tree planting programmes in 2023.

Tree planting can often fail as an emission offsetting activity due to planting failures, poor maintenance or changes in land use & ownership.

By supporting this scheme, backed by the Royal Forestry Society, we can ensure that the trees we plant will be under excellent stewardship and as a result have the best chance of a sustainable, long-term chance to grow and thrive.

Net Zero – the challenge ahead

Net Zero is defined as ‘completely negating the amount of greenhouse gases produced by human activity, to be achieved by reducing emissions and implementing methods of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere’.

Within a private organisation, this means we must strive to completely remove emissions from our activities and only when we can reduce this no further, can we support schemes and initiatives that will actively remove emissions from the atmosphere.

As a planet and as a company, we clearly have a long road ahead. Our plans will be developed to address these fundamental requirements and part of this will be the introduction of ambitious and challenging targets aligned to SBTi goals.

You can check out more about our carbon journey so far here: https://www.idverde.co.uk/sustainability/

Our commitment towards becoming a sustainable grounds maintenance and landscape creation provider is unwavering, and with our dedicated and passionate team leading the charge in being a carbon neutral business in its third successive year, we are optimistic about the company’s next steps towards becoming a net-zero business in the future.