ENVIRONMENTAL EMISSIONS
ENVIRONMENTAL EMISSIONS
ENVIRONMENTAL EMISSIONS
Introduction
The firm's carbon emissions inventory has been developed in full consultation with Normative and is fully aligned with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol. Emissions have been calculated using the best available data for the reporting period, including operational activity data and supplier or financial information where direct source data is unavailable. This has been calculated via the Normative platform and with the review of the Climate Strategy team at Normative.
The inventory covers Scope 1, Scope 2 and relevant Scope 3 emissions across the firm. This includes direct emissions from fuel use and refrigerants where applicable, indirect emissions from purchased energy, and value chain emissions such as business travel, commuting, waste and purchased goods and services. Cumulatively, these emissions scope figures provide a comprehensive overview of the firm’s emissions impact.
The data in part serves to inform our target setting, progress in key areas of emissions impact and help us identify areas for improvement. Notably, we are focussed on the continual process of data refinement and will continue to monitor, review and as necessary update our emissions reporting scope and figures to ensure we are fully aligned with emissions reporting best practice and all applicable reporting standards.
One important caveat to the dataset for this reporting period (1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026) is that the Employee Commuting data included in the reporting numbers reflects a commuting survey conducted in July 2025 which covered the previous reporting period. We will be conducting a fresh survey during summer 2026 and once the revised data is available, we will update these figures accordingly.
One of our key focusses, in partnership with the team at Normative, is to continually work to refine and improve the quality of data. We recognise the limitations of our Scope 3 emissions calculations, especially the Purchased Goods & Services spend based calculations and are committed to working in partnership with our supply chain to move away from spend based data wherever possible.
Finally, it should be noted that our approach is to ensure that we are robust and transparent in reporting our emissions. However, current reporting practice especially around Scope 3 is not uniform and does vary from business to business, such that firm-by-firm comparison is not always meaningful.
Financial Year (FY) 2025/26 carbon emissions
Our carbon emissions for FY 2025/26 are shown below for both market-based and location-based emissions.
The data demonstrates where the Firm's key areas of emissions impact reside, notably:
Purchased Goods & Services – 7,059.65 tCO2e and 81.64% of market-based emissions (82.79% of location-based)
Business Travel – 453.42 tCO2e and 5.24% of market-based emissions (5.32% of location-based)
Scopes 1 & 2 – 529.18 tCO2e and 6.12% of market-based emissions (408.63 tCO2e and 4.79% of location-based emissions).
This profile of emissions is typical for a professional services firm, with just under 95% of our emissions attributed to Scope 3.
FY 2025/26 carbon emissions vs FY 2024/25 carbon emissions
During the reporting period FY 2025/26, we saw a reduction in total emissions of 13.46% (market-based) and 14.23% (location-based) compared to FY 2024/25.
There were notable reductions in our Scope 3 emissions, with significant decreases for Purchased Goods & Services (797.70tCO2e, 10.15%) and business travel (166.58 tCO2e, 26.87%).
Given the limitations of spend based calculations, the decrease in Purchased Goods & Services could in-part be attributed to a reduced spend. However, we continue to prioritise reductions in this space through the further development of our sustainable procurement process. We remain focussed on refining and enhancing the data quality, and will be working closely with our consultants and internal teams throughout the coming year to further enrich the supply chain emissions data and help inform our supplier engagement strategy.
We launched an exciting Business Travel initiative this year centred on a carbon fee for international business class flights. Initiatives such as this supplemented by the revision of our Travel and Expenses policy are helping us to achieve reductions.
Other notable steps taken during the reporting period that have helped contribute to the reduction:
- We raised awareness of key environmental issues, including the concept of a Just Transition during our EnviroNovember campaign which featured a session with Euella Jackson;
- We continued to work closely with our managing agents and landlords to ensure prompt and accurate data, incorporation of energy efficiency measures within building improvement programmes and identify future opportunities for emissions reduction across all of our buildings. One example is the transition away from reliance on gas for heating of our buildings as seen at our Southampton office (Oceana House);
- For more examples please visit our Environmental page.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
*Employee commuting figures are based on a commuting survey in July 2025. We have included them in the figures here, but these will be updated once we run our FY 2025/26 survey (expected in August 2026).
All emissions figures and percentages are rounded to two decimal places.
Intensity metric - total emissions per employee
We see this measure as an important intensity metric to help us monitor progress and provide a comparison for performance relative to our competitors. It should be noted that this is not a sole indicator of performance and progress in isolation. Scope 3 reporting in particular can vary business to business – and our focus is to ensure we are as robust, comprehensive and transparent in terms of our emissions data and reporting approach.
In this reporting period, the reductions in emissions per employee were at 12.74% for market-based and 13.69% for location-based emissions. During the period, FTE headcount remained relatively static (+0.21%). Reductions were primarily attributed to a reduction in overall emissions and as noted, a significant reduction in Scope 3 emissions.
Additional highlights – comparison to FY 2019/20
We have calculated our emissions dating back to FY 2019/20, using this standard and methodology. The key data highlights are included below:
We have seen a reduction of 49.82% (2dp) in market-based Scopes 1 & 2 emissions since FY 2019/20
We have seen a reduction of 70.63% (2dp) in Business Travel emissions since FY 2019/20
We have seen a reduction of 28.94% (2dp) in overall Scope 3 emissions since FY 2019/20
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