PJA is continuing our commitment to reduce our carbon footprint. As a signatory to Pledge to Net Zero we have the ambition of halving our carbon emissions by 2030.

In line with this pledge and the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTI), PJA has been measuring its operational carbon (Scope 2 and 3 emissions) since 2019 to establish a baseline position and set a carbon reduction target. Following this, an annual carbon review will be published to monitor progress and review our initiatives.

No carbon offsets have been permitted as part of these measurements to ensure carbon reductions are accurate and in line with the Pledge to Net Zero guidance.

In 2023, PJA re-baselined our 2019 data to account for the company employee growth, expansion into new offices and continued improvement in our carbon monitoring processes. The 2023 results have been compared to this re-baselined data. Some of the key changes and initiatives we’ve implemented have included:

• Launching our Company Travel Plan in late 2023, and accompanying Office Travel Information Packs to provide our employees with detailed information regarding their sustainable travel options for commuting, including active travel routes, public transport connections and car sharing schemes, and initiatives to support sustainable business travel.
• Switching our Birmingham office to renewable energy sources to help reduce our operational carbon emissions.
• Hosting Carbon Month in September to raise awareness of our carbon footprint amongst our employees, including a range of events including making carbon pledges, office planting, cross-office carbon forums, swap shops and presentations on topics such as making best use of green spaces.
• Members of the PJA team have undertaken carbon literacy training provided by the Carbon Literacy Project to continue develop our teams understanding of our carbon impacts.
• We are starting to explore carbon with our key clients and beginning to understand their carbon commitments.

Our operational baseline carbon emissions in 2019 were calculated as 183 tCO₂e. This set the target operational carbon emission requirement of 159 tCO₂e in 2023, to achieve a 50% reduction by 2030 in accordance with the Pledge to Net Zero requirements. However, we have not reached our target goal in 2023, and instead measured 203 tCO₂e, demonstrating that PJA has more work to do to reduce our carbon emissions. Since our baseline was set in 2019 our company has been exploring project work abroad which has significantly increased our carbon emissions related to business travel. Alongside our commitment to reduce our carbon emissions we are also committed to providing the best service possible to our clients, which requires that we travel to client meetings, which has compounded the increase in business travel emissions. However, our Scope 2 emissions have meaningfully reduced since the 2019 baseline.

PJA is committed to taking urgent climate action and reducing our carbon footprint, but we recognise that balancing this with the needs of a growing business is a challenge. Over the coming 12 months we aim to introduce further initiatives to reduce our Scope 3 emissions, while retaining the excellent client relationships we have grown, and continue with the great work we have done to reduce our Scope 2 emissions further.

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