Environmental reporting

The Aldersgate Group voluntarily monitors and reports the climate and environmental impacts arising from the Secretariat carrying out its business across scopes 1, 2 and 3, and has done so on an annual basis since 2011.

As a small organisation this is a significant undertaking, but we believe this reporting helps us to better understand the challenges associated with identifying sources of emissions and the barriers to producing high-quality reporting faced by our members, such as data gaps and changes to methodological processes. We are able to utilise this understanding when developing our policy recommendations, to ensure any polices implemented will spur action in a realistic and achievable way.

To progress our decarbonisation efforts, in 2021 we joined the Race to Zero campaign as an accelerator – encouraging our members to join the initiative – and set a net zero science-based target which is in line with a 1.5 degree of warming pathway. We used the SBTi target-setting tool to commit to reduce our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% and our scope 3 emissions by 46.2% by 2030, against a baseline of emissions from 2019-2020. This led to a review of some of the data included in the environmental impact report – as new sources of scope 3 emissions were included – to ensure calculations and reporting are as accurate as possible.

Using this target and revised methodology, we have begun to identify opportunities for carbon emissions reductions and altered our business operations accordingly. For example, we have already minimised meetings-related travel by switching to online events and roundtables, and will begin to purchase refurbished computer equipment rather than new products. We will continue to use our environmental reporting to identify further decarbonisation opportunities and use these to engage our suppliers to minimise their emissions further in the coming years.

Download the current report