Fourth Verified Carbon Footprint Underlines Epimorphics’ Sustainability Focus

Epimorphics has published its fourth verified annual carbon footprint report, covering the 2023/24 period. This latest assessment includes our GHG emissions across Scope 1, 2, and Scope 3 (core and supply chain). In parallel we have published our Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP) following the Procurement Policy Note 06/21 guidance from the UK Government.

Figure 1: Epimorphics’ Verified Scope 1, 2 and 3 Carbon Emissions for the
years 2020/21 through to 2023/24

For our 2023 / 2024 financial year the total emissions for scope 1, 2 footprint and core 3 footprint (homeworking, business travel, employee commuting and scope 3 energy emissions) was approx. 9.57 tCO2e (location-based) and 9.33 tCO2e (market-based).

In addition we estimated our supply chain emissions in line with the UK SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) methodologies. The combined total is 37.53 tCO2e (location-based), which is likely to be an overestimate due to known carbon reductions by some parts of the supply chain. Our 2023 / 2024 financial year data was independently verified by Carbon Footprint Ltd..

Figure 1 shows the trend in carbon footprint since our initial verified reporting for 2021/22. The make up of the trends are quite complex and in part due to post-covid changes and, as we’ve noted previously, accounting standards and methodologies rather than real-world changes in emissions [Link https://www.epimorphics.com/2021-2022-carbon-footprint/]. However, as the chart illustrates, the broad pattern is a reduction in overall emissions over the last four years.

The overall carbon footprint and our Carbon Reduction Plan [LINK] (see summary in chart below) highlight that as of Aug 2024 we transitioned to fully remote working. That means that from the reporting year 2024/25, our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions will reduce to zero kgCO2e/year.

It is important to note that the Carbon Reduction Plan (CRP) standards (Procurement Policy Note 06/21) only includes a subset of Scope 3 categories used in our annual carbon reporting. Specifically the CRP only includes Scope 3 emissions for categories:

Category 4 (Upstream transportation and distribution),
Category 5 (Waste generated in operations),
Category 6 (Business travel),
Category 7 (Employee commuting and we voluntarily report Home Working) and
Category 9 (Downstream transportation and distribution).

While our overall footprint also includes Category 1 (Purchased Goods and Services) which constitutes about 75% of our overall footprint in 2023/24 and greater in future, as our Scope 1 & 2 drop next year..

Figure 2: Taken from Epimorphics’ Carbon Reduction Plan. Actual Scope 1 , 2 & 3 Emissions and Projected/Target GHG Location Based Emissions and Linear Target Illustration 2021-2050 (tonnes CO2e/year). Note Scope 3 categories in CRP are as a sub-set of those used in the overall footprint. Our financial year is 1 October – 30 September. The chart x-axis is for the year end, e.g. 2024 is for our financial year 2023/24

Our CRP also details other actions we are taking to reduce our carbon emissions as well as highlighting that for the last two years we have been monitoring and managing our ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) risk and compliance, and sustainability goals using the Ecovadis platform, the results of which are available to other scheme members.

See our Sustainability Summary Statement page, which we will be updating, for further background on our sustainability policies and practices.