Our Sustainability Journey

Metta has been on a whirlwind of a journey in becoming an eco-friendly and sustainable business. It’s time to provide an update on what we’ve achieved this year so far.

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An Update — what’s new?

At the beginning of the year, we shared our reflections on 2021, What Sustainability Means to Metta, and what we were looking forward to in 2022. We spoke a little about who we are, why we exist, some of our ambitions, an outline of our commitments as well as celebrating getting our Planet Mark Certification.

We figured it was time for an update, especially considering the fact that we’ve recently submitted our application to become a B Corp! Completing the B Impact Assessment is an achievement in itself, but I have to say we thoroughly enjoyed it and certainly learned a lot about ourselves.

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Our Commitments — what we’re doing

We want to share some details about our commitments and provide a bit of a breakdown around our measurements. We are still committed to Net Zero by 2030 and have completed our progress report with B Corp Climate Collective, further solidifying our commitment to the Race to Net Zero and Tech Zero.

We have a plan in place to reduce our overall emissions. As a starting point, we plan to:

• Reduce gas usage by 20% by end 2022
• 100% switch to renewables by end 2023
• Reduce CO2 emissions from our website by 50% by end of 2022
• ​​Increase volunteering hours across the organisation by 7 hours per employee per year by the end of 2022.

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The Breakdown — why we’re doing it

According to our current measurements, we need to achieve roughly a 13% reduction per year to achieve Net Zero by 2030. However, in this coming year, we plan to measure our wider scope 3 footprint to give us a clearer picture and that number might change.

Further to maintaining goals we achieve listed above, we are developing longer term plans around water usage, guiding our supply chain, employee commuting and business travel. This past month, we achieved our Carbon Neutrality certification from Planet Mark and will continue to work towards net zero emissions with neutrality as our ongoing benchmark. In January 2023, we will have an update on our progress towards Net Zero with our next emissions calculation.

The majority of our Scope 1 emissions were a result of our homes being heated by natural gas, something most of us have no control over completely removing as we rent. We have committed, however, to monitoring and reducing our use. Most of our team have also switched to providers with a renewable tariff with the rest in the planning stages. The other major component to our emissions was travel, particularly long haul flights. While you could say long haul flights are a necessary evil for getting us to where we need to be (however much we’d love to be able to get a train to the Middle East, for example!), we have continued our commitment of offsetting all of our travel and are committing to limiting our long distance travel to instances where a digital or virtual alternative isn’t possible. When there is a need to fly, we always book what is displayed as the most sustainable and efficient flight.

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*Note, we are a fully remote business so most numbers are the result of a breakdown of our home energy consumption.

In line with UN Global SDGs

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, are a collection of 17 interrelated goals set by the United Nations.

They cover a broad range of social and economic development issues. These include energy, health, education, poverty, climate change, gender, equality, water sanitation and more. By measuring and reducing our carbon footprint with the Planet Mark, we directly and measurably contributed to 5 SDGs.

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Our Emissions and Offsetting

Our total emissions as a business last year was 6.8 tonnes (~2 tonnes per employee) and although some offset personally, we decided to do it as a business as well.

Further to our contributions via Planet Mark, Metta has offset 10 tonnes of CO2e! Below you’ll find a breakdown of the projects we’ve supported, working with Ecologi in order to do so.

• Project: First ever wind power project in Honduras // tonnes CO2e reduced = 6.7
• Project: Wind power project in Mexico // tonnes CO2e reduced = 3.3

Our 10 tonnes of CO2e is equivalent to one of the following:

8 Long haul flights, 30 metres2 of sea ice saved, 24,810 miles driven in a car

In addition to this, Metta has planted 500 real trees in our forest! Below you’ll find a breakdown of the projects we’ve supported.

• Project: Mangrove planting in Madagascar // Trees planted = 390
• Project: Forest restoration in Kenya // Trees planted = 90
• Project: Planting forest gardens in Uganda // Trees planted = 20

How much carbon do these trees absorb?

Reforestation is widely understood as a major natural climate solution. From an ecological point of view we’re only just grasping the cost of what life is like without trees.

Ecologi mangrove trees capture up to four times as much carbon per acre than tropical rainforests. Three quarters of tropical fish rely on their root systems for nurseries and shelter.

Something to note, reforestation projects Ecologi funds aren’t certified as carbon offsets. The carbon emissions they will sequester will happen in the future, so for any reporting on offsetting a carbon footprint they only use certified offsets from our other projects (such as renewable energy). It’s this combination of making reductions today, and planning reductions in the future that is their approach to a comprehensive strategy of limiting climate change.

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Final Thoughts

Finally, further to our quantitative plan, we have put a number of policies and guidelines in place to ensure that we are holistically a responsible business some of which are:

• Philanthropy and Volunteering
• Impact Purchasing
• Sustainable Travel
• Supplier Code of Conduct (CoC)

Of course, this is just the beginning and reduction is our overarching, primary goal.

Thank you for coming on this journey with us! Please reach out if you have any questions or any further advice and tips for us.

Our full PlanetMark report can be found here

For more information about Metta and the work we do, head to our website. Check out our podcast Metta Talks to hear the latest about startups, innovation, and sustainability. The team is also on Twitter — reach out to us @mettatalks.

Want to learn more about Metta? Let’s talk 🗣

Heather Baden — heather@metta.partners | linkedin.com/in/heatherbaden