It’s easy to talk the talk when it comes to sustainability, but if we don’t measure what we’re doing, how can we manage it and how do we know if we’re making progress.

Measuring our carbon emissions is the first step towards reducing our emissions and environmental impact. Climate accounting – also known as climate reporting, Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reporting, and carbon reporting – is the means by which we can do this.
Put simply, climate accounting empowers our business to fight climate change, stay compliant with environmental regulations, and seize business opportunities. That’s why, at SproutWorld, we’ve moved to climate accounting, where we now document our climate footprint and map initiatives that can lower our CO2 emissions.
As customers and the market are increasingly demanding transparency and traceability, over time, climate accounting will become a competitive parameter for us. Legislation is also moving in the direction of making CO2 reduction and climate accounting compulsory, at which point it will become a business imperative.
We are already a step ahead with the development of our Blockchain app and CO2eq calculator, which provides stakeholders easy access to our supply chain data.

Starting in 2023, SproutWorld will integrate its annual report to give equal weight to profit and purpose. The report will outline both the financial and non-financial figures relating to our business, and make them publicly available.
Furthermore, the report will be in line with the requirements of our B Corp certification, where purpose and profit are given equal importance and the company's primary responsibility lies with stakeholders.

Our climate account is a comprehensive account of CO2 eq emissions of the entire company including all our products, using data from Life Cycle Assessment reports (LCA) for both our pencils and makeup liners. The LCA is a product level analysis that calculates CO2eq emissions. Both the climate accounting report and LCAs were undertaken by an outside consultancy firm. The baseline year for the report is 2021 – the date from which we started collecting data and will be our base year for climate accounting going forward.
At the product level, CO2 accounting is based on the spend-based method. In spend-based carbon accounting, the economic value of purchased goods or services is multiplied by corresponding emission factors (e.g. kg CO2eq per €) to calculate the emissions caused. It uses financial data that is usually already available in companies.
These calculations are based on so-called environmentally extended input-output (EEIO) models, that requires less effort in data collection. However, this approach has some limitations, so going forward, we will use activity-based measurements. The activity-based method uses data to specify a particular product or material that a company has purchased/produced.

We have made an action plan to reduce our GHG emissions that will require both our suppliers and customers to be involved in the process. SproutWorld wants to:

• Increase renewable energy in our production from 50% to 70% by 2030 (Scope 3)
• Change to more energy-efficient equipment within our production (Scope 3)
• Optimize energy mix and material for producing paper and packaging (Scope 3)
• Procure renewable energy for our offices (Scope 2)
• Engage and commit all corners of our organization in our GHG reduction journey
• Set targets to influence suppliers’ climate action and use climate action as a metric when selecting new suppliers
• Increase the amount of supplier-specific data in Scope 3 to make it more accurate and operational.

Overall, SproutWorld has a very small CO2eq footprint, which actually makes it harder to reduce the remaining CO2eq. From our 2021 climate accounting (spend-based), we have identified that the largest area of GHG contributions within our business comes from Scope 3, in particular from category 3.1 Purchased goods and services, including the production of our own products.

From next year, when we start using activity-based measurements, we believe that while the production of our products will still be a significant contributor, so will packaging. Once we have this in place, we’ll be able to put together a structured plan for implementation.

SproutWorld has signed up to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and we have pledged to reduce our carbon emissions by 95% in 2040. SBTi is a global certification system through which companies can set GHG emissions reduction targets and get them certified. Goals are considered to be science-based if they are in line with what the latest research shows will be necessary to achieve the Paris Agreement's objectives, namely, to work to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5˚C.
In SBTi, companies set near- and long-term goals and initiatives for all three scopes working towards Net-Zero by 2050 at the latest. To achieve Net-Zero, a company must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050.
When companies align their strategies with science-based targets, it has a big impact on accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and avoiding the worst effects of climate change. Science-based targets are undeniably good for the planet. But many SBTi companies confirm that science-based targets are also good for business. Here are six benefits a company can expect to see from setting a science-based target: brand reputation, resilience against regulation, increased innovation, bottom line savings, investor confidence, and competitive edge.