We’re on a mission to make learning accessible to all by building a fair, affordable and sustainable textbook solution for students around the world. We believe that education has the power to transform lives and pave the way for a brighter future, but what kind of future will this be if we fail to protect our planet now?
🌍 Don’t stop at being ‘more sustainable’
From day one, Perlego has offered a more eco-friendly way of reading and studying. As a digital-first company, we cut out resource-heavy print and distribution services that are environmentally damaging. This approach saves up to 130 acres of forest per year — that’s the equivalent of 72 football fields.
But, that part is easy. We know being digital is not the ‘golden ticket’ to sustainability, it comes with its own set of challenges and does not exempt businesses from further responsibility. This is why we are committed to not just being more sustainable but committed to becoming net-zero.
✊ Our commitment to become net-zero
As our business grows, so does the need to take immediate action on climate change. We are committed to scaling our business sustainably — building this goal into our culture, values, strategies and processes.
To help us on our mission, we have partnered with TechZero, Leaders for Climate Action & The Climate Pledge.
🤚 We promise to:
01. Measure our impact
The first step is understanding our company’s carbon footprint. We used the Leaders for Climate Action calculator, which measured our emissions based on facility management (energy and water usage), staff mobility (commuting), business travel (flights, trains, cars, etc.) and procurement (catering, office supplies, electronics, data servers, etc.)
02. Offset our emissions
In partnership with Ecologi & Eden Reforestation, we planted over 6,500 trees and offset 100 tonnes of CO2 — by investing in projects, such as one that helps to produce electricity from solar energy in Vietnam and another that protects and restores forests in Colombia. We will continue to find ways of reducing our emissions across all scopes, offsetting when we can’t.
03. Reduce carbon emissions
As we grow, we will continue to keep track and learn from this data. Reducing as much as possible. Ways we are looking at reducing our CO2 range from only essential business travel policies to choosing partners wisely.
Shared values are important and we can’t become ‘carbon negative’ alone, so we aim to partner with other environmentally conscious businesses. We’ve made a good start:
🌥 Our servers are Amazon Web Servers (AWS) — which run on 60% renewable energy and are aiming for 100% by 2030. (We’ve offset the remaining emissions.)
🏢 Our office is a WeWork, which uses renewable energy and is committed to being carbon neutral by 2023.
04. Foster a sustainable culture
We are helping our employees become more sustainable individuals by building a resource hub where they can share ideas and advice on how to make greener choices — both at work and in their personal lives. We support all our employees with a cycle-to-work scheme.
05. Lead by example
Perlego’s leaders will support, encourage and facilitate this sustainable mindset by demonstrating their commitment to this business goal — reducing business travel, making time for sustainability initiatives and taking the planet into account at every step of our business’s journey.
06. Report & repeat annually
Every year we will be repeating this process, getting closer to reaching our goal to be net-zero by 2030.
