Vu Digital
At a Glance
- Client: VU Digital
- Industry: Website Design and Digital Marketing
- Goal: To fully understand the components of their carbon footprint. To be able to act on this and reduce carbon.
- Services: Carbon Footprint, Carbon Reduction Plan
- Timeframe: 2024 onwards, building on partial carbon footprint done with previous supplier
The Challenge
Vu Digital is a B Corp certified digital marketing agency, helping business to develop, evolve and compellingly tell their story using their website and other digital media. As a certified B Corp, Vu Digital is committed to working towards higher standards of social and environmental impact and so had been working on measuring and reducing their carbon footprint for several years before they asked Go Climate Positive for help.
The previous work had focussed mainly on their “Scope 1 and 2” emissions. These are the emissions associated with their operations, generated by activities such as heating, electricity use (it would also include company vehicles if they had any). Having worked for 5 years on reducing these, the business had got these down to the point where they were negligible. However the company recognised that the bulk of their emissions were likely to be within “Scope 3” (the emissions that occur outside the business but that are related to the activities of the business) but had not yet found a practical and achievable way to address them.
Knowing that we have a wealth of experience working with smaller businesses to measure and reduce their Scope 3 emissions, Vu Digital asked Go Climate Positive for help.
You can learn more about carbon footprints and emissions scopes here.
“Go Climate Positive really understand small businesses and the benefit of small businesses getting involved in doing this kind of work.”
Richard Wain | Vu Digital Founder & Director
Our Solution
Go-Positive provided structured, expert support to help Vu Digital identify all its emissions sources and measure their contribution to the company’s carbon footprint (across Scopes 1, 2 AND 3). In particular this included quantifying the contribution of the company’s supply-chain.
Our experience of working with smaller businesses has led us to develop a unique approach to measuring Scope 3 emissions, which is both practical and meaningful.
We call this approach “peeling the layers of an onion” and it works by applying the following 3 principles:
- Accurately calculate where data is readily available
- Estimate where data is not readily available
- Gradually improve data collection over time to reduce the proportion that is estimated
This approach allows us to swiftly identify the key contributors to the business carbon footprint, which is what is needed to make a meaningful start to carbon reduction. Then, by zooming in on the most significant elements, we can improve accuracy over time where it is helpful, and not waste effort focussing on activities that will not make a significant contribution.
Once this clarity had been achieved we were able to provide coaching support to help Vu Digital decide on their priority actions and complete their Carbon Reduction Plan.
“Steph is very, very easy to work with... incredibly knowledgeable...and understands all of the little nuances that are really critical.”
Richard Wain | Vu Digital Founder & Director
The Results
With Go Climate Positive’s support, Vu Digital have been able to drill down into their carbon footprint, identifying and considering the emissions of individual suppliers in a way that they had not been able to do before.
We were able to give the company meaningful insights into their carbon footprint calculation, explaining where the data has come from, where is it likely to be more or less accurate and why. With his degree in statistics, this was important to founder Richard Wain, as for the first time he feels comfortable that the data that he is looking at is accurate enough to be able to tell an accurate story.
This really matters to Richard as he believes Vu Digital has an important role in spreading the message that carbon reduction should be celebrated as part of running a business well. In this way the company can have a significant impact on climate change, beyond the reductions it makes in its own carbon footprint.
Having a clear understanding of the company’s Scope 3 emissions has helped the Vu Digital team understand where it should concentrate its efforts going forward, and will help with its B Corp certification.
