What our carbon measurement has told us so far

Our carbon emissions have been measured by Carbon Footprint Ltd, an independent assessor, every year since 2021. The assessments for 2023 and 2024 are now complete, and our emissions per employee fell 15.4% across the two years. It's the lowest figure we've recorded since we started analysing our activities.

What matters just as much is how that figure was reached. We don't decide what gets counted. Carbon Footprint Ltd sets the scope, and it has widened it as its methodology has developed. Computing equipment came in for 2022. From 2023, water and wastewater, waste, hotel stays and additional site electricity across our six offices were added too. Each change puts more emissions into the total, so the test has become more demanding year on year, and both 2023 and 2024 were measured on that same broader basis.

To take responsibility for the emissions we can't yet remove at source, we've funded the mitigation of 346 tonnes of carbon dioxide through five independently certified projects:

·       In Indonesia, the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve, protecting vital rainforest and safeguarding habitat for the endangered Bornean orangutan.

·       In Uruguay, the 'Guanaré' Forest Plantations project, transforming former cattle-grazing land into new forest.

·       In India, a solar power project across Tamil Nadu and Telangana, generating clean and renewable electricity for the national grid

·       In Southern Ethiopia, a Community Protected Springs project, repairing boreholes and helping provide local communities with access to safe drinking water

·       In Brazil, the Russas Project, helping protect tropical forest from deforestation and preserve vital ecosystems

Each project is independently certified to either the Verified Carbon Standard or the Gold Standard, two of the most widely respected certification schemes in the voluntary carbon market. Both require a project to prove that the emissions saved are real, measured, and would not have happened anyway.

Our partner matters here too. Carbon Footprint Ltd is a founding member of the Quality Assurance Standard for carbon offsetting, an independent scheme that audits offsetting providers on the quality of the projects they offer and the way they run them.

For Charles Robinson, founder of Jones Robinson Estate Agents, the way the assessment has developed matters as much as the result:

"We're pleased to see our emissions per employee fall again, and proud that our assessment gets more thorough every year - the more we measure, the more robust our picture of our impact becomes. Supporting projects that protect rainforest, restore degraded land, deliver clean energy and provide safe drinking water lets us take responsibility for the emissions we haven't yet been able to remove, while we keep working on reducing them at source."

Helping people find and look after their homes is what we do here. It feels right that the projects we support are doing something similar for families a long way from Berkshire.

Next, we're working with Carbon Footprint Ltd to set formal, validated targets and to extend future assessments to cover emissions from our supply chain, the next step our latest appraisal recommends. Our commitment, made in January 2022, is to reach net zero by 2030 or sooner.

We'll keep sharing our progress here as that work continues. You can read more about our commitment, the projects we're supporting and our partnership with Carbon Footprint Ltd on our Achieving Net Zero page.