Beale & Co achieve CarbonNeutral® company certification, in accordance with The CarbonNeutral Protocol, the leading global framework for carbon neutrality.

Measuring, offsetting and reducing our impact on the environment is a core part of our Responsible Business Strategy and we are proud to announce that we are a carbon neutral firm.

Last year we engaged an external consultant who independently assessed our carbon emissions for 2019 – 2020 at 213 tonnes. This is about average for a service business of our size for that period – it would be expected that a business of our size and nature would fall somewhere between 200 and 300 tonnes.

We then engaged with Natural Capital Partners, a leading international carbon offset provider, to achieve carbon neutrality. Through Natural Capital Partners, we have supported two registered projects – chosen by staff vote – which has allowed us to become certified as carbon neutral. These projects also align with our EDI policy due to their wider societal impacts. The projects are:

1. Brazil: Biodiversity & Forestry – 90% of Brazil’s Acre state is forested, but current rates of destruction mean by 2030 this could decline to 65%. This collection of three projects aims to prevent deforestation across 105,000 hectares of pristine rainforest in the Amazon basin, protecting some of the world’s most biodiverse habitats. With the support of carbon finance, the projects work with communities and local groups to help protect ecosystem services while providing alternative models of economic development which avoid destruction of the forest. Click here for more details.
2. Sub-Saharan Africa: Improved Water Infrastructure – 164 million litres of clean water per year brought to 270,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa. At least 2 billion people worldwide do not have access to safely managed drinking water. This Gold Standard project, based primarily in Uganda, Malawi, Rwanda and Eritrea provides clean drinking water to small rural communities by repairing and drilling new boreholes. Boreholes can be used as water wells by installing a vertical pipe casing and well screen, which allows water to be extracted from the ground, even during dry seasons. By providing clean water, communities no longer need to purify water through boiling. This alleviates pressure on local forests – the predominant source of firewood – and reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Click here for more details.

As for the future, in relation to maintaining our carbon neutral certification, we now have the structure in place to capture all of our emissions on a year-on-year basis, so we can off-set the carbon we produce, based on our actual impacts. More importantly, as well as offsetting our carbon through internationally recognised offset programmes, we want to go further and for our activities to have a net positive environmental impact. We are therefore partnering with environmental charities and organisations in our various office locations in the UK, Ireland and Middle East and rolling out a programme of events with those partners over the coming year.

Partner, Killian Dorney, who led our environmental initiative said:

“…Operating in an environmentally sustainable way is not a commercial aspiration, it’s a commercial responsibility. We are very proud to have obtained carbon neutral certification this year and, more so, we’re excited about what we can do with our environmental partners in our various locations, to have the biggest positive environmental impacts we can…”  

For further information on our Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives please click here.