Here at Oh So Social, we are conscious of the impact running a business, of any size, can have on the local environment, and the world as a whole. We previously made the decision as a team to strive to be greener and make our agency more sustainable, and we started by ensuring each member of the team does their bit individually to be more eco-conscious. Recycling, car-sharing, virtual calls instead of travelling to in-person meetings, reducing single-use plastic and going paper free in the office – there are many ways we are doing our bit for the planet.
After striving to reduce our emissions first, we were keen to go further than this. Oh So Social is proud to share that we are now officially a Net Zero business! We have offset our remaining carbon emissions through Ecologi and, as of July 2022, have planted 500 trees and prevented 10 tonnes of CO2 from entering our atmosphere. This is the equivalent of 24,814 miles driven by the average car.
There are three scopes to our carbon footprint, and we have chosen to address all three and err on the side of caution. We have offset more than our total emissions to ensure we truly do meet Net Zero. For Scope 1, our direct emissions, we actually have a zero return, as we do not generate any direct emissions.
Our Scope 2 emissions include purchased electricity. We’re currently based in an office building with a service charge, so we have based our electricity figures from the square footage of our office and information from our Landlord.
We wish to be as transparent and as accurate as possible, so have chosen to include Scope 3 emissions in our efforts. These include travel (both commuting and Katherine’s business travel), purchase or renewal of our electrical/IT equipment, and water usage. We have also decided to include our social media activity, as although this is carried out at different data centres, such as Facebook or Twitter, this is the core of our business and we believe it is important to take responsibility for this.
To achieve Net Zero status for Oh So Social, we worked with Tevi Cornwall, an EU-funded project led by University of Exeter. Chris Phillips, Impact & Partnership Development Manager at Tevi, was instrumental in helping us work towards Net Zero. He said: “We always knew the Carbon Footprint of Oh So Social was going to be relatively small, as Katherine and the team have done such great work already. Working together, we’ve been able to isolate exactly where their main emissions are coming from, and reduce them accordingly where we can. The team have chosen to then offset any remaining “hard to reduce” emissions leaving the business in a great position going forward.”
We’re delighted to have achieved Net Zero and will continue to do our bit to reduce carbon emissions and protect the planet we love.