Case study: South Pole Australia
As an environmental services profit-for-purpose organisation, South Pole strive to make a positive impact on climate, ecosystems and communities whilst supporting clients on their climate journey. Helping organisations in Australia, New Zealand, and over 20 other countries contribute to climate action and realise value in their sustainability journeys, South Pole have been certified carbon neutral in Australia since 2017.
Tell us how you got to this milestone.
In Australia, we have been certified carbon neutral under the Climate Active scheme (then NCOS) since 2017. Other than this, we also conduct group-wide annual greenhouse gas accounting and emission offsetting for all of our regional offices to reach group-wide carbon neutral each year.
What were the easy wins?
Switching to 100% renewable electricity for our offices and offsetting our residual emissions via carbon removal and reduction methods of the highest quality.
What were the barriers, and how have you worked to overcome them?
No barriers - this is a process we help our clients with every day so we have always been committed to “practicing what we preach”.
What’s the next step for South Pole?
We have an ambitious 1.5°C science-based target validated by the Science Based Target initiative (SBTi) to halve our emissions by 2030. We are also committed to the B Corp ‘Net Zero by 2030’ initiative.
What are your climate priorities in the next 5 years?
Technically we achieved our SBT in 2020, achieving a 69% decrease in emissions compared to our 2018 baseline. But we know this is due to the pandemic’s impact on the business world. So, as a climate leader, we aim to capture the lessons from 2020 to drive less carbon-intensive operations in the future. Another major initiative already underway is ensuring our default pension providers across 18 global offices are sustainable by the end of 2022. We are also committed to becoming B Corp globally.
What do you want to achieve by 2030?
Of course, we want to achieve the targets we have set for our organisation but we also want to continue helping clients and amplifying our impact. In the past, we’ve helped clients reduce 6,000 times more emissions each year than our own carbon footprint. We’re proud of this ratio, and are committed to driving it in a climate-positive direction.
South Pole was founded to accelerate the transition to a climate-smart society.
We remain firmly committed to acting today for a better tomorrow, and we are firmly of the belief that this also means making sure that we ourselves are doing all we can to make this a reality.