The UK has committed to achieving net zero by 2050 and every business has a role to play in making that possible. This requires businesses to understand their existing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, agree a net zero target and put a plan in place to achieve this as quickly as possible.
With sustainability at the heart of its four-year growth strategy, UK law firm TLT aims to be as ambitious as possible when it comes to sustainability and net zero. In 2021, it set out to achieve the most ambitious climate targets in the professional services industry.
This article explains why TLT took a “gold standard” approach to net zero, including seeking external validation by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), and how other businesses can learn from its successes and follow in its footsteps.
How did you decide which framework to use?
Businesses have a lot of choice when it comes to setting and achieving their climate targets. Go at it alone or work with experts? Aim for net zero by 2050 or sooner? Reduce emissions or offset them? Align with a 1.5°C warming future or 2°C? Seek external validation or not?
This is a highly specialist area and there is a whole market built around helping businesses to understand the latest climate science and what best practice looks like.
In recognition of the urgency of the climate crisis and the importance of getting this right, we decided to seek external validation by SBTi. This supports our philosophy of being as ambitious as possible (and not marking our own homework) and gives us extra credibility in the market; people can trust that our targets are aligned with the latest climate science and that they’re achievable.
SBTi is a collaboration between the CDP, United Nations Global Compact, World Resources Institute and World Wide Fund for Nature and just over a year ago it announced its Net-Zero Standard – the world’s first science-based standard for setting corporate net-zero targets.
How has the process helped you better understand your requirements to reach net zero?
The SBTi process is extremely rigorous and gave us everything we need to understand our existing emissions and work out how to achieve net zero by 2040 – our ambitious long-term target.
It also highlighted some new opportunities and helped us to prioritise our next steps, for example, we are in the process of sourcing a supply chain management platform to help reduce our scope 3 emissions – the largest proportion of our GHG emissions.
As well as giving us ambitious short- and long-term emissions reduction targets, we can see the detail on where the pinch points are (across and within scopes 1, 2 and 3) and what changes and actions are needed to achieve them – all contained in our net zero roadmap.
What have been the ‘sticking points’ in setting your plan?
A gold standard approach to net zero takes time, and there is a lot of work involved – particularly at the initial data gathering stage. We set up a working group to ensure that we could complete the SBTi process as quickly as possible, who met regularly to ensure we didn’t lose any momentum.
We also decided to work with specialist consultants Carbon Intelligence, which allowed our in-house sustainability team to focus on making the right strategic decisions and again, expedited the process.
What are the benefits to your business undergoing SBTi accreditation?
External validation gives us extra credibility with our internal and external stakeholders. In a world where greenwashing is unfortunately still rife, it’s important that people can trust our approach.
It also means we can be confident that while we are being ambitious, our targets are achievable. It also means that we can now press on with our emissions reduction plan and share best practice with other organisations who are also going on this journey.
Do you have any advice or a call to action for other businesses?
Our advice would be:
- Make sustainability a key part of your growth strategy – to ensure it stays at the top of the agenda and guides your decisions as a business
- Set a net zero target that’s aligned with the latest climate science (using external consultants and external validation where possible) and create a plan to achieve it
- Be as ambitious as possible, and check that you’re keeping up to date with the latest climate developments
For further information on TLT's strategy see: Environmental sustainability at TLT - TLT LLP