Carbon Reduction Plan

Cognitant’s commitment to achieving Net Zero

Cognitant is committed to achieving Net Zero emissions by 2030, twenty years ahead of the government target. We are currently working to develop a full implementation plan which will allow us to bring this target further forward.

The carbon footprint of Cognitant has been calculated using the SME Carbon Footprint Calculator. This Carbon Footprint Calculator has been designed to help UK based SMEs measure their corporate emission footprint following GHG Protocol Guidance, including direct emissions from fuel and processes (Scope 1 emissions) and those emissions from purchased electricity (or Scope 2 emissions) for the assets they operate.

 

Baseline emissions footprint

In order to calculate Cognitant’s footprint, we originally looked at information for the year of 2021, 01 January 2021 to 30 December 2021. Baseline emissions are a record of the greenhouse gases that have been produced in the past and were produced prior to the introduction of any strategies to reduce emissions. These include:

  • Fuel consumption – Fuel consumed by Cognitant in its sites and employee vehicles. Found from bills, meter readings and travel expenses claim system.
  • Energy consumption – Electricity used in Cognitant’s sites. This information through meter readings, utility bills, or automatic meter readings.
  • Top ups made to air conditioning units

Our reported data covered the chosen 12 months of data. In some cases we did not have exact data for the whole year, so we estimated the consumption using the average energy or fuel consumed per month.

Baseline emissions for the year of 2021 (baseline year)

Scope 1 emissions (direct energy and processes): 115 kgCO2e

Scope 2 emissions (indirect impact from electricity): 41 kgCO2e

Scope 3 emissions (vehicle emissions from commuting, waste generation, business travel, employee commuting): TBC end June 2023

Total emissions: 155 kgCO2e

As our operations were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and significant organisational changes were made during 2023, we committed to recalculating our baseline emissions to reflect a full year of our current usual operations for 2023.

Baseline emissions for the year of 2023

Scope 1 emissions (direct energy and processes): 113 kgCO2e

Scope 2 emissions (indirect impact from electricity): 121 kgCO2e

Total emissions: 234 kgCO2e

We have based calculations on actual data as far as possible rather than average data methods to ensure we have a more accurate calculation.

Emissions reduction targets

To continue our progress to achieving Net Zero, we have adopted the following carbon reduction initiatives:

  • From June 2023 we ceased use of an office, with all employees moving to remote working, apart from some of use of shared office space where face to face working is essential. Closing the office not only reduces our carbon footprint from direct emissions (scope 1 and 2) related to the electricity / gas use but also reduces travel and commuting (scope 3).   
  • Cognitant uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) as our cloud service provider which is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy and will be powering all operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. The technology research organisation, 451 Research, has shown that AWS can lower customers’ workload carbon footprint by nearly 80% compared to surveyed enterprise data centres and this will be closer to 96% once AWS is powered by 100% renewable energy.  
  • Any PR collateral for the company (posters, letters, business cards) is created with 100% recycled paper.  
  • We limit our national and international travel to essential travel only.

Future intiatives

  • At present we do not hold any environmental accreditations but  as our company grows we will be looking to demonstrate our green credentials by engaging an independent organisation (e.g Green Accord) to assess our business against a recognised standard such as ISO 14001 for environmental management.