Froglife’s Carbon Footprint

How we did it

At Froglife we have been working to reduce our negative environmental impact and enhance our positive environmental impact for many years. Climate change is impacting us all and we know that amphibians and reptiles are particularly susceptible.

We have been monitoring our utility usage for several years and looking for a way to calculate our carbon footprint. In 2023 we partnered with The University of Bath to help us achieve this. Following a competitive recruitment process, Eleanor Jones undertook the task as a paid intern through The University of Bath’s Humanities and Social Sciences Employability Projects programme, sponsored by Santander.

Eleanor undertook the following steps:

The results

Our carbon footprint 2022-23 is: 1.5 Tonnes CO₂e

This compares well with the Carbon Trust figure for a typical company of 15 tonnes CO₂e.

Our main impacts are:

• Scope 1: 0.1 tonnes CO₂e- Direct emissions that result from activities that are under the organisation’s control. For Froglife this is gas usage at our offices.
• Scope 2: 1.3 tonnes CO₂e- Indirect emissions from any electricity, heat or steam purchased and used.
• Scope 3: 168.7 tonnes CO₂e- Emissions include purchased goods and services, use of sold goods and business travel.

By far our biggest impact is the materials that we and our contractors use. Travel and homeworking are small in comparison:

• Travel: 7.14 tonnes CO₂e
• Accommodation: 0.27 tonnes CO₂e
• Materials: 109.88 tonnes CO₂e- The main materials are pond liner, pond plants, fencing, signage and art/sculptures
• Homeworking: 3.3 tonnes CO₂e

Eleanor drilled down into the data for each project that we deliver and identified which are the most and least carbon efficient, factoring in the project size.

Action Plan

Based on these figures, we are developing an action plan to reach net zero by 2030.

This includes:

• Biggest hitters: Identifying all materials purchased that are >0.5 tonnes CO₂e and developing individual plans for reduction.
• Each project increasing the percentage of re-used materials each year, with higher percentages for projects currently re-using the least.
• Identifying the projects with the highest environmental performance and transferring good practice across Froglife. For example, our Somerset Green Pathways for Life project has no car usage; staff travel for all sessions is undertaken with a bike and trailer.

We will re-calculate our carbon footprint each year to assess our progress towards net zero.