At SocialOptic, we are committed to mitigating our environmental impact and contributing to the global effort to combat climate change and committed to achieving Net Zero by, or ahead of, the 2050 target of the UK Government and industry standard Carbon Reduction Plans, with key milestones on the journey to that target.
As a Software as a Service (SaaS) business, we recognise that our primary carbon footprint source arises from data centre power consumption. In alignment with our dedication to sustainability, we are undertaking the following initiatives as part of our commitment to becoming carbon neutral:
Transition to Renewable Energy:
By 2025 100% of SocialOptic data centre power had been transitioned to renewable energy sources. This transition aligned with our goal to reduce our carbon footprint and contribute to a low-carbon energy future.
Energy-Efficient Infrastructure:
SocialOptic currently operates with at least 50% less server capacity than comparable technology businesses, using infrastructure that is 93% more efficient than legacy IT infrastructure. This efficiency is achieved through strategic infrastructure management, optimisation, and ongoing investments in cutting-edge technologies.
Serverless Technology Implementation:
We are actively implementing a full migration to serverless technology across our infrastructure. This innovative approach ensures that compute power is consumed only on demand, eliminating the need for dedicated server infrastructure and wasted capacity, and further reducing our energy consumption.
Continuous Monitoring and Improvement:
SocialOptic is committed to regularly monitoring and evaluating our environmental impact. We will continue to explore and adopt emerging technologies and best practices to enhance our energy efficiency and minimize our carbon footprint.
Transparency and Accountability:
We will maintain transparency in our sustainability efforts by regularly reporting our progress and milestones towards achieving Net Zero. Our commitment is underpinned by a sense of accountability to our stakeholders, customers, and to the planet we live on.
Innovation and Research:
Our software development methodology includes resource consumption assessment and monitoring, which ensures that our code runs efficiently, as well as correctly and securely, and provides energy efficiency measures for our development team. We invest in on-going research to identify and adopt sustainable technologies and operational approaches that further reduce our environmental impact.
Stakeholder Engagement:
We involve our key stakeholders, including employees, customers, and partners, in our sustainability initiatives, and encourage their participation in achieving shared sustainability goals.
Supply Chain Sustainability:
Through our long-standing commitment to the Good Business Charter, we are committed to working with suppliers who share similar environmental values and encourage sustainable practices throughout the supply chain. We incorporate sustainability criteria into our procurement process, asking suppliers to demonstrate their own sustainability practices, and learning from the initiatives they are pursuing.
We do not currently use Carbon Offsetting as we would rather focus our efforts on direct, sustainable reductions in our energy consumption, and making use of renewables wherever possible.
Our Carbon Reduction Plan
SocialOptic is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and achieving Net Zero by 2050 in line with the UK Government’s Climate Change Act 2008. This Carbon Reduction Plan outlines our current carbon footprint, reduction targets, and actions to achieve Net Zero, as approved by the SocialOptic board.
This CRP covers:
- Scope 1: Direct emissions from company-owned or controlled sources (e.g., fuel combustion).
- Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heat.
- Selected Scope 3 Categories: Upstream and downstream transportation, waste management, and employee commuting (as per the required subset of Scope 3 emissions).
SocialOptic will implement the following measures to reduce emissions:
- Transition to renewable energy sources for all operations.
- Optimise any logistics and supply chain practices to reduce transportation emissions.
- Implement waste reduction strategies, including recycling and circular economy principles.
- Encourage low-carbon commuting options for employees when travel is required
(e.g., public transport, cycling, electric vehicles).
Baseline: Carbon Footprint Measurement (FY 2023/24)
| Emission Scope | Source | CO2e (t) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope 1 | None (no vehicles or gas equipment) | 0 |
| Scope 2 | Home office electricity and Office electricity (Camberley) | 0.8 |
| Scope 3 (relevant) | Azure cloud services* | 3.4 |
| Business travel (occasional trains, very occasional air travel) | 0.7 | |
| Total | 4.9 |
*We estimated Azure’s data centre emissions using Azure’s BCDR guidance and Microsoft’s UK datacenter compliance data.
Reduction Measures
A. Home Office (Scope 2)
- Encourage switching to renewable tariff electricity providers.
- Promote energy-saving working habits when idle.
B. Cloud Hosting (Scope 3)
- Use Azure UK datacentres and exploit the Emissions Impact Dashboard to track usage per resource.
- Implement auto-scaling, shut down idle VMs, and rightsize compute/storage.
- Schedule heavy workloads during low-carbon grid periods, following Microsoft’s carbon optimization guidance.
C. Travel (Scope 3)
- Keep business travel minimal, with occasional rail trips only.
- Encourage videoconferencing for client meetings nationwide.
Our Successes To Date
Since starting our Carbon Reduction Plan we have already reduced our emissions by over 90%, through changes to working practices and our supply chain. We continue our plan to close the gap on the final 10%, without using carbon offsetting, tree planting or carbon credit purchases.