SEACROFT Marine Consultants, a leading provider of marine and DP consultancy, assurance, project management and training services to the maritime and offshore energy sectors, is proud to announce they have achieved carbon neutrality for their entire operation in accordance with the PAS 2060:2014 standard.
PAS 2060 is the internationally recognised specification for carbon neutrality published by BSI. It sets out requirements for quantifying, reducing, and offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for organisations and products.
‘The subject for carbon neutrality is our entire operation. This includes facilities, energy use, business travel, employee commuting, purchases of goods and services, use of upstream and downstream transportation and distribution and waste management,’ said Michael Cowlam, technical director at Seacroft Marine.
‘Much of our business is centred around the natural environment, in our case the world’s oceans, and as a responsible marine consultancy, we wanted to reduce and offset our carbon footprint by making a meaningful contribution to net zero.’
Seacroft has published its Qualifying Explanatory Statement (QES) on their website, explaining how it achieved carbon neutrality for its products and services delivered in 2022 in accordance with PAS 2060:2014, and how it plans to reduce emissions and maintain this achievement going forward.
The QES documents how carbon emissions of products and services were assessed, the consultancy’s carbon management plan, inclusive of emission reduction initiatives, and the carbon offset processes which are used to demonstrate carbon neutrality.
Looking ahead, Seacroft’s carbon footprint reduction plan outlines the targeted activities to reduce its carbon footprint over the period 2022-2030, with a quantified reduction goal of 35.42 per cent.
‘We plan to achieve this by transitioning our office to a renewable electricity provider, adopting energy-efficient practices, using low-power electrical equipment, optimising business travel and commuting, and reducing emissions from our logistics and supply chain. We will regularly review and update our plan to ensure continuous improvement.
‘Our carbon management plan sets out how we will reduce emissions across all our products and services, and we are delighted that we were able to offset our entire emissions for the first achievement period.
‘The biggest single change to our business has been opening an office in Lowestoft and hiring staff to service our clients in the southern sector, which has significantly reduced the amount of business travel from Aberdeen.’ said Michael.
Two initiatives were behind Seacroft’s carbon offset. The first was the purchase of 19.25 acres of former farmland in Aberdeenshire, which will be preserved as a wildflower and grass pasture with shrub and tree coverage. They also participated in the Conserve Natural Forests tree planting scheme, planting Afzelia xylocarpa species in Thailand. Between them, these initiatives offset a total volume of 114.336 tonnes CO2e emissions for 2022.
Seacroft’s Qualifying Explanatory Statement (QES) can be studied on the company’s website.
