Carbon Reduction Plan

1. Introduction

Understanding Recruitment 

Understanding Recruitment is an award-winning technology, software and digital recruitment consultancy. We are based in St Albans Hertfordshire, working from a serviced office located near the town centre and railway station.

We have 68 employees working from our office and occasionally from home.  The nature of our business means we are predominately an online and telephone-based business. The Covid 19 Pandemic further facilitated the use of online platforms for interviewing and client meetings.  We also encourage many of our employees to work flexibly from home if as and when needed.

Commitment to achieving net zero

Understanding Recruitment is committed to achieving Net Zero by 2050.

Baseline assessment 

We used 2021 as our baseline assessment year, although we were in the Covid 19 Pandemic our activity and office attendance were largely in line with our normal business activity.  

We are based in serviced offices therefore utility and waste suppliers form part of our lease agreement. We have a good working relationship with our landlord and work with them to seek low-carbon services.

2. Actions taken in before or during 2022

Our office space has a number of Carbon reducing initiatives in place.  These include:

• Motion-activated lights in all areas, ensuring floors are lit zonally based on activity, instead of the whole floor.  Kitchens, bathrooms and stairwells are only lit when in use by motion-activated sensors, thus removing the need to remember to switch lights on and off.
• We have changed all light bulbs to LED to reduce energy consumption.
• Removal of mobile phones.  All telecoms are routed through our employee laptops; therefore, we have reduced the consumption of mobile phones, and associated accessories to nil.
• I.T equipment at the end of its useful life to Understanding Recruitment is reset to factory settings, donated to our IT supplier for parts and where possible sent to local primary schools for repurposing. 
• Purchase of reusable coffee cups and water bottles, these were supplied to all staff as part of corporate branding and carbon reduction and to reduce waste volume. 
• We ensured that there is an adequate supply of crockery and cutlery to assist those bringing food or collecting takeaway food into the office with the view of reducing non-recyclable waste to nil.
• MFD used for printing, copying and scanning has a standby-off mode to reduce energy consumption.
• Continue recycling of secure wastepaper, and sourcing recycled paper for use in the company.
• In 2022 we had outgrown our office space therefore we took another floor in the building to double our space, we increased our head count therefore have more employees commuting into the office and from a wider area.  
• In the new space we ensured that all lights were LED and motion controlled.
• We purchased a fridge for the new office space that is rated F and in line with current ratings available for purchase from high street retailers. 
• Our energy consumption did increase with the doubling of our office space, unfortunately, due to the current energy crisis at this time as a commercial user in a serviced office, we are not able to change providers.  We continue a dialogue with our landlord to work to towards a fully sustainable supply. This will be kept under review for the forthcoming reporting period.

BASELINE YEAR: 2021

Additional Details relating to the Baseline Emissions calculations.

Scope 1 – 0.137 tCO2e

Understanding Recruitment reportable activity in this area is car company car usage.   Our Company cars are Audi Q5 50 TFSI E car and Audi Q4 full electric.

Scope 2 – 28.93 tCO2e

• Electricity – 24.53 tCO2e - This includes all power use including servers and air conditioning
• Gas – 3.9 tCO2e
• Water 0.48 tCO2e 

Scope 3 – 334.3 tCO2e 

4. Upstream Transportation and Distribution

Upstream T&D – not relevant – explanation provided (Understanding Recruitment Ltd is a recruitment agency in the UK that supplies contract and permanent staff within the IT sector. We provide services rather than goods and, as such, transportation and distribution of goods are not relevant to us)

5. Waste Generated in Operations

We have minimal waste generated through our operations as we provide a service rather than a product, we endeavour for a paperless office however we use a third party to securely dispose of paper waste generated

Estimated emissions based on number of pick-ups and car make in addition to emissions produced through disposal of paper.

• Travel – 0.05 tCO2e
• Operations – 0.04 tCO₂e
• Total – 0.09 tCO2e

6. Business travel in 2021

• Trains 0.08 tCO2e
• Flights 0.78 tCO2e
• Business mileage claimed 0.03 tCO2e

7. Employee Commuting 

We asked our employees about their commuting activity, this is included their method travel, number of days in the office, distance from the office

We calculated the total of all activity in this area to be: 

Commuting 333.23 tCO2e 

9. Downstream Transportation and Distribution 

Downstream T&D – not relevant – explanation provided (Understanding Recruitment Ltd is a recruitment agency in the UK that supplies contract and permanent staff within the IT sector. We provide services rather than goods and, as such, transportation and distribution of goods are not relevant to us)

BASELINE YEAR EMISSIONS:

3. Actions taken 2023 

• In 2023, we saw a reduction in our head count which allowed us to temporarily condense back onto one floor, to eliminate/reduce energy usage on the second floor. This will be re-evaluated with level of growth in the future. 
• We continue a dialogue with our landlord to work to towards a fully sustainable supply. This will be kept under review for the forthcoming reporting period.
• We have a newly appointed Community & Social Value Manager who advocates, measures and adapts our social value activity – not limited to, but including, environmental sustainability. 

REPORTING YEAR: 2023

4. Considerations for next reporting period

Electricity is one of our biggest areas of emissions so we will continue to monitor the market and seek low carbon alternatives at the nearest opportunity.

We will be planting one tree for every permanent placement we make as a business. 

Our Community and Social Value Manager will introduce our first series of Social Impact Reports, which encompass three detailed reports across five key impact areas, with environmental sustainability being a primary focus. 

Observing employee behaviour has shown that some employees create a much higher carbon footprint than others and therefore we highlight this in our next team day with the view that awareness changes behaviour.

Our office space is currently sufficient to meet our needs and to allow organic growth and expansion of our workforce. 

Continue to donate unwanted I.T to local schools.

We will explore carbon offsetting further as a way of reducing our impact on the environment.

Declaration and sign off

This Carbon Reduction Plan has been completed in accordance with PPN 06/21 and associated guidance and reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans.

Emissions have been reported and recorded in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the GHG Reporting Protocol corporate standard  and uses the appropriate Government emission conversion factors for greenhouse gas company reporting .

Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions have been reported in accordance with SECR requirements, and the required subset of Scope 3 emissions have been reported in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard .

This Carbon Reduction Plan has been reviewed and signed off by the board of directors (or equivalent management body).

Signed on behalf of the Supplier Understanding Recruitment Ltd

Date: 22nd August 2023

Signed    

Dale Swords
Founding Director