All of us at Acceleris are very pleased to announce that we have offset over and above our estimated carbon dioxide emissions for 2020. We are committed to becoming a sustainable organisation by improving our environmental performance and driving long-term, sustainable growth.
As a firm we advise and invest in companies looking to solve the world's biggest problems. To lead by example, we decided to look closer to home and conduct a thorough review of our firm's impact.
Carbon offsetting is the process of reducing unavoidable carbon emissions by investing in carbon reduction projects which can bring many benefits to the wider environment as well as local, social and biodiversity benefits.
We have achieved carbon neutrality by reducing travel miles, encouraging working from home and having more meetings virtually to avoid unnecessary travel. This has of course been driven by the pandemic, and we now pledge to continue to work intelligently and diligently in order to minimise our firm's impact.
For the unavoidable carbon emissions, we have offset them utilising an internal review across the last few months. We have estimated our total emissions for 2020 using the Carbon Footprint calculator for car travel, train and flights, emissions for our office and for home working.
Our total came to 6.7 tonnes of CO2e so we have decided to offset 14 tonnes of CO2e, more than double our predicted emissions for 2020. Our offset has been invested into a UK tree planting initiative focused on the North West UK. The project supports education as the majority of trees are planted in school locations.
In additional to offsetting our carbon emissions the tree planting initiative also provides wildlife habitats and supports biodiversity, plants native British trees and enhances the natural UK landscape. For every tonne of CO2e that are offset a tree will be planted in the UK and an additional tCO2e is offset through the VCS tree buddying project to guarantee the emission reduction. This means that a tonne of CO2e will be saved in the Brazilian Amazon via VCS avoided deforestation programme.
The VCS tree buddying project helps to ensure the carbon offset is fully verified, meets international standards and meets BSI’s PAS2060 specification on carbon neutrality.
In addition to the above, we are investing in carbon offsets on a monthly basis going forward. We have set up a monthly subscription to plant 1 tree per month the equivalent of 1 tonne of CO2e, which again includes the tree buddying programme so 1 tonne of CO2e is offset via a VCS project to ensure the offset is met. We aim to review our emissions each year and as part of our initiative work to reduce and offset our emissions going forward.
As a firm we have recently completed a transaction for our long-term client Power Roll, who are working to commercialise an ultra-low cost Solar and storage technology and we will continue to seek new advisory mandates that have the potential to make a considerable global impact. We are also working with a disruptive new infrared heating technology, the UK's leading Vertical farming system and continue to seek out innovative UK technologies that have potential for significant global impact.
