Sustainable practices: introducing Wardour's TCFD report

The team at Wardour firmly believe that all organisations, big and small, have a part to play in the urgent actions required to tackle climate change.

In some ways that’s easy for us to say – as a creative agency, our company’s emissions are comparatively small. So beyond our four walls we believe that Wardour’s biggest influence is in supporting the sustainability strategies of our clients, whose impacts are larger than ours because of the scale and scope of what they do.

But at the same time we believe it’s only right to practice what you preach and, within our creative sector, to lead by example. And with that in mind we’re delighted to announce that Wardour has published its first, and industry-leading, TCFD report, showing our CO2 emissions and how we are dealing with them.

Why does this matter?

Producing a TCFD report (it stands for Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures) is only something that can be done if a business has a true understanding of their carbon emissions. We've modeled our emissions in detail from each company laptop to those from the trips we take to visit clients – and everything in between. Simply put, we get it. We understand the climate crisis facing the planet, and we want to be a part of the solution and help to create a more sustainable future.

How does this benefit you – and does that matter?

First and foremost, we're doing this because we want to become a more sustainable business. That's how the conversation started, and how the conversation ends.

The fact that we're becoming a net zero agency in 2024 as part of our primary goal of decarobinising our activities does, however, bring benefits to our clients too.

We're part of our clients' supply chain, and the lower our carbon emissions, the lower their scope 3 emissions.

When it comes to the actual work we do for our clients, we already have proven expertise in our understanding of sustainability issues, from environmental impact and water use to biodiversity and corporate social responsibility – the whole spectrum of sustainability marketing.

But having worked on our own TCFD report, this understanding has become our own first-hand experience, and we think this will only strengthen the value we add to our clients' marketing moving forward.

We've also grown our expertise of sustainable marketing – not to be confused with sustainabiltiy marketing. Delving into the details has meant we have an even stronger understanding of the impact of a client's marketing strategy, from digital footprint to print production, and we look forward to sharing this knowledge with our clients.

In addition, in light of the introduction of more detailed and complex disclosure requirements, we have partnerered with Canbury to provide our clients with in-house sustainabltiy consultancy. This partnership brings the benefits of Canbury’s sustainability expertise to our global client base, and allows us to better support our clients in all areas of their sustainability journey.

Are we greenwashing?

It's a fair question, and one we wouldn't blame you for asking. Some of our own employees even asked it when they were first told about our sustainability ambitions. More and more companies are making green claims and it's becoming harder to identify which companies actually practice the sustainability initiatives they shout about. But simply put, no.

Even as an agency of our size, we understand that reducing our carbon footprint is critical, so we're taking a proactive position in our decarbonisation activities. We have engaged our landlord in their choice of energy supplier, we work with printers who use recycled paper and we provide office showers and bike racks to encourage low-carbon forms of employee travel.

Our TCFD report details our exact emissions and clearly states our interim target to halve our emissions intensity per employee by 2030.

We also fully acknowledge that some of our clients operate in energy-intensive sectors. In these instances, we encourage and support them in their ambitions to be better, more sustainable businesses for the communities they serve and in their aims to limit and, where appropriate, reduce their impact on the environment.

We also want to mention offsetting our emissions, which we discuss in our report. It's through our offsets in 2024 that we will become a net zero agency, and while that's something we're proud of, the term ‘carbon offsetting’ can be seen as, well, better than it actually is.

Offsetting emissions is not that same as decarbonising, and that's the ultimate goal. So while we'll be temporarily employing offsets to address the emissions that are currently unavoidable in our operations, we acknowledge that we have an environmental responsibility, and that this is not a long-term solution by any means – our long-term goal is to continue to decarbonise.

So, no, we're not greenwashing.

A final word

As mentioned, following the publication of this report, our next step is to temporarily employ carbon offsets. While this allows us to proudly commit to our sustainabiity journey and becoming a net zero company by the end of 2024, we want to be very clear that these are just the first steps on our journey to becoming a more sustainable business. First and foremost, our sustainability efforts will focus on considerably reducing the agency's carbon footprint.

Becoming a more sustainable business is something that is embedded in the agency, and we are especially proud of our leadership team who, over the past 12 months, has clearly recognised the importance of climate change and its impact on business operations, client relations, our staff and the broader community, and built this into our own sustainability strategy. The Board has had to make difficult considerations to respond to our own climate considerations, and we are incredibly proud of how we have worked together at all levels of the agency to get to this point.

Wardour's TCFD report, which has been produced in partnership with Canbury, sets out our approach to climate change risks and opportunities, and how we are working to reduce our carbon footprint, the targets we have set and how we offset our remaining emissions, so that we will become – and will remain – a net zero company.

To request a copy of our TCFD report, please email hello@wardour.co.uk.