Plan written by Changeworks’ Stuart Hiles, Central Support Manager, and Evelyn Mitchell, Quality and Environmental Systems Manager – September 2025
Overview
Our Commitment
Changeworks’ Carbon Reduction Strategy and Plan support Changeworks’ Strategic Plan and our vision for a world where people are able to live, work and enjoy life with a low carbon impact.
Changeworks is committed to improving our environmental performance. As well as the positive environmental impacts, choosing a lower carbon approach brings other benefits such as saving money or improving health. Building a sustainable low carbon society requires us all to play our part, and we will continue to support organisations, communities and individuals to achieve and enjoy low carbon living. Whilst we have remained carbon neutral since 2018-19, our commitment extends beyond this.
Aims and Objectives
We help businesses, communities and households to reduce their carbon footprint – but as we do this, we are creating our own emissions.
As one of Scotland’s leading environmental organisations, Changeworks aims to be an exemplar by committing to reducing our own carbon emissions as we help others reduce theirs, while aiming to ensure that the energy transition is fair. This means settings targets, measuring our emissions and putting effective plans in place.
We recognise that our own energy, waste and transport activities have an impact on the environment, and aim to:
- Reduce our carbon emissions to 70% of current levels by 2030 through an ambitious target of 14% year-on-year carbon savings
- Reach true net zero from 2040, under which our buildings, estates and entire operations will cease to generate any emissions
- Maintain our Carbon Neutral Organisation status by balancing any residual emissions through carbon offsetting or comparable activities.
How we will achieve this
- By ensuring there are clear and effective policies, guidance and processes in place to enable and encourage sustainable practice, including our Environmental Policy.
- By maintaining an effective Environmental Management System certified to the international standard ISO 14001.
- Through the implementation of a Carbon Reduction Plan which is monitored and evaluated annually and is comprised of the following thematic activities:
- Changeworks offices (waste, water, energy, heat)
- Business travel (including fleet)
- Carbon reduction communication and information
- Behaviour change/employee benefits
- Commuting/homeworking
- Supplier engagement and supply chain emissions
- Carbon reduction policies
- Carbon footprint
- Carbon reduction targets and offsetting
- Certification
- Memberships, partnerships and idea sharing
- Via staff engagement and carbon reduction information sharing
- Through a range of employee benefits to incentivise behaviour change
- By openly publishing our carbon footprint, offsetting activities and plans to reduce our impact each year
- Through the evaluation of the Integrated Management System (ISO 14001 / ISO 9001 / ISO 45001) and continuous improvement.
Background
Changeworks has measured its carbon footprint since 2008 and implemented a Carbon Reduction Plan in 2019 as a result of the Climate Emergency declaration. Changeworks has been a carbon neutral organisation since 2018-19.
To ensure our carbon footprint calculations are robust and transparent, a decision was made in 2021 to obtain external verification of our carbon calculations. Carbon Footprint Ltd. is used each year to verify our footprint data to ISO 14064-3 (2019) standards. This has led to several improvements and refinements in our methodology, helping us to adopt best practice.
We report our environmental performance to the Changeworks Board each year, and our carbon footprint is included in our Annual Report. To further aid transparency and demonstrate our commitment to carbon management and net zero, our annual footprint calculations are published using Carbon Footprint Ltd.’s ‘Carbon Database Initiative’.
Changeworks became members of the Edinburgh Climate Compact in 2021 and in doing so established the organisation as part of a network of Edinburgh City ‘climate champions’. This supports our aim being an exemplar organisation, as well as our goal to enhance our profile and strengthen our partnerships to increase our impact and influence.
Changeworks is also a founding partner of Highland Adapts, which was established in 2021 by nine organisations to work together, share responsibility, and take collective action on climate change in the Highland region.
Our ISO 14001 Environmental Management System has been in place since 2005, and places responsibility to engage with staff for environmental sustainability. A review of the longstanding Green Team resulted in the establishment of the Carbon Reduction Team in 2021, with more defined activities and staff representatives for each department.
A decision was made in 2024 to integrate ISO 14001 with ISO 9001 (Quality Management Systems) and ISO 45001 (Occupational Health & Safety), resulting in a streamlined Integrated Management System. An internal audit regime is in place for the year, and surveillance audits will be undertaken by a third-party external assessor.
Roles and Responsibilities
The day-to-day management of our Environmental Management System is undertaken by the Environmental and Quality Systems Manager, reporting to the Central Support Manager. Environmental policies and guidelines are reviewed and signed off by the Deputy Chief Executive.
The Changeworks Carbon Reduction Team lead on embedding staff behavioural changes and are the key delivery mechanism for achieving our aims and objectives.
Carbon Reduction Plan: 2025-2026
The following plan details the carbon reduction activities under each of the key themes. It is reviewed annually and informs the work of the Carbon Reduction Team and others.
- Use 100% renewable energy suppliers in the main Changeworks offices
- Maintain heat recovery system in Edinburgh office for optimal energy efficiency
- Deploy recycling and reuse initiatives in accordance with the principles of the Circular Economy
- Comply with the Waste (Scotland) Regulations 2012 by using SEPA registered waste carriers to collect our source segregated materials for recycling
- Ensure all teams adhere to the Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Scotland) Regulations 2022
- Encourage sustainable procurement of ICT / infrastructure and other equipment and materials.
- Ongoing review of fleet and continuing transition to hybrid and electric vehicles
- Pilot programme to install domestic electric vehicle charge points for pool cars targeted at our Highland & Islands staff
- Active recruitment of remote workers from Highland rural communities to reduce business travel emissions
- Active promotion of the Changeworks Travel Hierarchy, sustainable and active travel
- Teams encouraged to adopt a digital first approach for the delivery of events
- Ongoing promotion of eCargo bike, folding bike & eBike use for home visits and events.
- Active Carbon Reduction Team with representatives for all departments developing carbon reduction ideas within teams and across the organisation
- Environmental Induction for all new staff including climate emergency training
- Carbon reduction advice cascaded to staff via Home Energy Reduction Microsoft Teams
- Maintain regular posts on the CRT Hub on the Changeworks intranet for easy access to carbon reduction information and advice.
- Provision and promotion of Electric Vehicle and Bike to Work salary sacrifice schemes
- Ongoing promotion of fuel efficient and electric vehicle efficient driving courses
- Financial incentive available for staff when car sharing for business travel
- Financial incentive available for staff when using their own bike for business travel.
- Ongoing provision of secure bike storage / lockers / showers, changing & drying facilities
- Maintaining and expanding uptake of car sharing via Microsoft Teams groups
- Promotion of switching to 100% renewable energy suppliers in staff homes.
- Actively engage with our suppliers to encourage sustainability and reduce our Scope 3 carbon footprint emissions
- Attend Supplier Day Events including those facilitated by the Energy Saving Trust.
- Environmental Policy reviewed & updated annually: read and signed by all staff
- Ensure purchasing decisions are based on achieving the lowest practicable environmental impact and to source items as ethically as possible using our Sustainable Procurement Policy & Guidelines
- All staff use the Sustainable Events Checklist when organising events.
- Openly publish our carbon footprint, plans to reduce our impact and our offsetting activities and each year
- Ensure our carbon footprint data collection is robust and is continually improved via external verification from Carbon Footprint Ltd. to ISO 14064-3 (2019) standards
- Ongoing communication with key suppliers to gather their emissions data to improve our Scope 3 data collection.
- 14% year on year annual carbon reduction target
- Target to become true net zero by 2040
- Invest in fully verified offset projects using PAS 2060.
- Maintain Environmental Management System ISO 14001 certification via internal and external auditing and through continuous improvement activities.
- Edinburgh Climate Compact member
- Highland Adapts partner
- Idea sharing sessions with Carbon Reduction Team members and partner organisations
- Working with suppliers and partners to encourage sustainability, sustainable procurement and uptake of ISO 14001.
Useful pages
Is this page useful?