Can we make the world a better place? Save the planet? Make this an enjoyable place for future generations to grow up in? Yes, we can! We’ve caught up to the sustainability train to reduce gas emissions across the world by aiming to go net-zero by 2025. Yay! 🌱
But how are we going to reach this target? Why did we decide to do it? And what’s in it for us? Here’s everything you need to know about our journey to net-zero gas emissions! Meet Project Sus(tainability) — that’s what we call it!
Why are we doing this?
We wish we could easily point out a single reason for taking on this responsibility and committing to this goal. Truth is, a few things weighed in when we decided to commit to net-zero gas emissions.
1 – On a global level, most countries have committed to reach a net-zero gas emission target by 2050. Moreover, governments and NGOs are raising awareness on an international level to prioritise sustainability as a part of corporate responsibility. The European Union, for instance, created the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), within the European Green Deal, which requires companies to report their environmental and social activities.
This is the only way to avoid the worst climate impact ever known to humans. Therefore, we are choosing to act upfront and reach our goal of going net-zero by 2025.
2 – This is a project that hits really close to home for some members of our team. To most of them, sustainability matters not only from a business standpoint, but also on a personal level, like for our CEO, Sebastien Marchon. You can read about his motivations on our CFO Corner. Some of our colleagues are really passionate and committed to achieving this goal, so they’re actively contributing and taking action to help Rydoo reach its target of going net zero before 2025! 🫶
3 – Last, but certainly not least, we know that even if each and every one of us do our best, individual action alone won’t save the planet. Businesses need to take action as well and contribute to a greater good. As a business, Rydoo has a responsibility to take action and make some changes, and we hope to inspire other companies to do the same along the way.
Meet Project Sus!
To achieve an effective, high-impact SUS project we’ve decided to break it down into three different steps, which I’ll explain below.
So, our first step, which is also our first pillar, is to measure our emissions in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This includes analysing a complete value chain, from the electricity and heating of our offices to our IT goods and services.
We kicked off our sustainability program in 2022 by calculating our baseline carbon footprint for 2021, taking the Greenhouse Gas Protocol into consideration. At the time, we published this article, we were already planning on starting to measure our emissions from 2022 — we’ll hope to have some updates soon!
Our second step is to report those emissions, and even though we’re not obliged to report it for regulatory purposes, we’re developing a strategy and will share that with our clients soon. For this, it’s important to stay up to date with environmental regulations across countries and communicate our ambitions and progress to stakeholders.
Last, but certainly not least, the third pillar is to act on reducing the numbers we gathered. And there are different ways to do this. Switching to electric cars, revamping our travel policy, and small changes across the office and to our day-to-day processes are just a few of the actions we’ve started to gradually implement at Rydoo.
On the other hand, there’s also the possibility of investing in carbon removals, which will also help us achieve our goal. And we have a few more things in the works regarding this topic, stay tuned!
Meet the Sus Team!
In order to achieve such an ambitious commitment, we had to assemble a task force team that could help on multiple fronts. So, as you can imagine, there are a few people involved in Project Sus. Shirley our VP of Operations is focused on the measurements, and Ale, Head of Legal Operations, is working on Reporting and I’m working on the actions part (hi 🤗 I’m Gloria, if you haven’t figured it out by now!), along side Dorien, our office manager in Mechelen!
Apart from the three of us, there’s a bunch of wonderful people from different teams who are also helping us reach this goal. From Finance to People Ops, Engineering, Marketing, and a lot of other colleagues who are helping us along the way! So and kudos to all of you!
We’re also counting on Watershed, our partner who’s helping us get this show on the road and guiding us into achieving our net-zero gas emissions goal before our due date!
If you’re curious about Project Sus and want to know what’s happening, we’ve got you covered! This is a continuous, long-term project that will progressively evolve, so we’ll keep you updated with our newest actions and hope to inspire you to work towards a sustainable future with us! ♻️
