Our Pledge to Net Zero
To demonstrate our commitment to sustainability, PUNCH made the decision to sign the Pledge to Net Zero in 2022. As part of our Pledge, we have committed to a 42% reduction in our Scope 1 and 2 emissions and a 25% reduction in our Scope 3 emissions by 2030 relative to our base year in 2022.
Our total emissions for our base year was 180.3 tCo2e and our total emissions for 2023 which is the latest year for which we have full data available was 175.5 tCO2e which represents a modest reduction in emissions against a backdrop of growing employee numbers.
In 2024, we made the decision to switch our electricity provider to a 100% renewables provider thereby dramatically reducing our combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions. As an engineering services company, our Scope 3 emissions associated with employee commuting and homeworking currently present us with the biggest challenge as this sector represents over 40% of our total emissions. We are currently looking at initiatives to reduce our Scope 3 emissions in the Employee Commuting and Homeworking area including installation of electric chargers in our offices, incentivising Public Transport and Active travel and facilitating more homeworking in the case of employees which live significant distances from their closest office location.
PUNCH recently published a Thought Leadership article relating to the opportunity presented by existing surface carparks for the deployment of solar installations and the significant contribution which this could have on our total renewable electricity generation if deployed at scale. Our thought Leadership article also assessed the Embodied Carbon associated with the new structures which would be required to support such car park solar installations and confirm that the payback in carbon terms is no greater than 3 years.