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 fully-remote Service (SaaS) business, our carbon footprint arises principally from three sources: the energy used by our home-based team, the cloud services that deliver our platform, and a small amount of business travel. We hold no offices, no vehicles and no fuel-burning equipment. In alignment with our dedication to sustainability, we are undertaking the following initiatives as part of our commitment to achieving Net Zero:
Energy-Efficient Infrastructure:
ocialOptic operates a deliberately compact and efficient cloud estate. Our platform runs on a shared hosting plan that scales automatically with demand, and customer applications are configured to sleep when not in use, releasing their compute back to the shared plan rather than holding capacity idle. Between July 2025 and July 2026, the carbon intensity of our cloud platform – emissions per cloud usage hour – fell by 26% while usage grew by 32%.
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 minimise our carbon footprint. This forms part of our management system and processes.
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 all share.
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 ongoing 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 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. Nil: no premises, vehicles or fuel-burning equipment.
- Scope 2: Indirect emissions from purchased electricity and heat. Nil: SocialOptic operates no premises and purchases no electricity or heat. Energy used by home-based employees is reported under Scope 3 Category 7.
- Scope 3 (selected categories)
- Category 1 — Purchased goods and services: cloud hosting and software services.
- Category 4 — Upstream transportation and distribution: Nil, digital-only service with no physical goods.
- Category 5 — Waste generated in operations: occasional IT equipment disposal only.
- Category 6 — Business travel.
- Category 7 — Employee commuting and homeworking.
- Category 9 — Downstream transportation and distribution: Nil, our service is delivered entirely online.
Methodology
Emissions are reported in accordance with the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, using the UK Government (DESNZ) 2026 greenhouse gas conversion factors for company reporting. Our restated FY 2024/25 figure uses the DESNZ 2025 factors, which were current for that year.
Cloud services are measured directly using Azure Carbon Optimization, covering all SocialOptic Azure subscriptions. This is measured data, not an estimate.
Microsoft 365 is estimated from Microsoft’s published datacentre emissions per active user, applied to our user count. Microsoft does not currently provide a comparable measured figure at our scale.
Homeworking is calculated using the DESNZ homeworking conversion factors applied to contracted working hours per full-time equivalent. Household energy data is not collected: the DESNZ factors are designed to attribute the work-related share without it, and collecting domestic energy data on employees would be disproportionate and intrusive.
Homeworking heating is the dominant term and is calculated from the DESNZ heating factor of 0.30234 kgCO2e per FTE working hour, applied to total annual working hours. That factor assumes every UK home is heated by natural gas, which DESNZ states explicitly. We depart from the DESNZ average in two respects, both using company-specific data in place of an average, which is preferred under the Scope 3 Standard’s data hierarchy. as 50% of our employees have moved from gas heating to a heat pump. A heat pump delivers the same heat for approximately 18% of the emissions of a gas boiler at 2026 factors. DESNZ assumes heating.
Business travel is calculated from recorded mileage using the DESNZ 2026 battery electric vehicle factor.
Targets
SocialOptic has made the SME Climate Commitment through the SME Climate Hub, whose signatories are recognised on the UN Climate Change Global Climate Action portal for ambition in line with the Race to Zero campaign. Under that commitment we have pledged to:
- Halve our greenhouse gas emissions within ten years.
- Achieve net zero emissions before 2050, in line with the UK Government’s target.
- Disclose our progress on a yearly basis. This plan is that disclosure for FY 2025/26.
Our own interim milestone is stricter than the pledge: to at least halve our emissions against the FY 2023/24 baseline before 2030.
Emissions are measured and published annually, within six months of the financial year end.
- Net Zero by 2050 or sooner, in line with the UK Government’s target.
- Interim milestone: to at least halve our emissions against the FY 2023/24 baseline before 2030.
- Emissions to be measured and published annually.
Against the published baseline our FY 2025/26 emissions are 62% lower. Because the baseline excluded homeworking heating, we do not treat the milestone as met, and will measure progress on a consistent basis.
Reduction Measures
A. Homeworking
- Encourage switching to renewable tariff electricity providers.
- Promote energy-saving working habits when idle.
B. Cloud Hosting
- Use Azure UK data centres and Azure Carbon Optimization to track emissions per resource and per subscription.
- Implement auto-scaling, shut down idle resources, and right-size compute and storage.
- Schedule heavy workloads during low-carbon grid periods, following Microsoft’s carbon optimization guidance.
C. Travel
- Keep business travel minimal, with occasional trips only.
- Encourage videoconferencing for client meetings nationwide.
Our Successes To Date
On a like-for-like basis our emissions fell from 2.5 tCO2e in FY 2024/25 to 1.86 tCO2e in FY 2025/26, a reduction of 0.67 tCO2e (26%). Of that, 0.44 tCO2e came from moving all business travel to electric vehicles, 0.08 tCO2e from lower cloud emissions, and 0.07 tCO2e from replacing gas heating with a heat pump in February 2026. The remaining 0.08 tCO2e reflects the revised 2026 government conversion factors rather than our own action. Over the same period, the carbon intensity of our cloud platform – emissions per usage hour – fell by 26% between July 2025 and July 2026, while its usage grew by 32%.
We will continue to reduce our residual emissions as far as is technically and practically possible, without using carbon offsetting, tree planting or carbon credit purchases. We recognise that a small residual footprint is unavoidable for any operating business.
Carbon Footprint Measurement FY 2025/26
| Emission Scope | Source | CO2e (t) |
|---|---|---|
| Scope 1 | None (no vehicles or gas equipment) | 0.0 |
| Scope 2 | None (no premises; no purchased electricity or heat) | 0.0 |
| Scope 3 (relevant): | ||
| Cat 1 | Azure cloud services – Measured Microsoft 365 – Estimated Other software services – De minimis | 0.12 0.01 < 0.01 |
| Cat 4 | Upstream transportation and distribution | 0 |
| Cat 5 | Waste generated in operations | 0 |
| Cat 6 | Business travel (electric vehicles) | 0.06 |
| Cat 7 | Home working, commuting – Calculated | 1.68 |
| Cat 9 | Downstream transportation and distribution | 0 |
| Total | 1.86 |
Lines are rounded independently; the unrounded total is 1.862 tCO2e.
Progress against baseline
Baseline table
| FY 2023/24 baseline | CO2e (t) |
| Scope 1 | 0.0 |
| Scope 2 (home office and shared-workspace electricity, as then classified) | 0.8 |
| Scope 3 (Azure cloud, estimated: 3.4; business travel: 0.7) | 4.1 |
| Total | 4.9 |
Historic baseline as originally published. The cloud figure was estimated before per-subscription measurement was available, and homeworking heating was not included, so the baseline is not directly comparable with later years.”
| Year | Total CO2e (t) | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| FY 2023/24 (baseline) | 4.9 | As originally published; cloud figure estimated; excludes homeworking heating |
| FY 2024/25 | 2.5 | Restated: homeworking heating included; DESNZ 2025 factors |
| FY 2025/26 | 1.86 | Current basis |
This Carbon Reduction Plan has been completed in accordance with PPN 006 and associated guidance and reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans.
Emissions have been reported and recorded in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the GHG Reporting Protocol corporate standard and uses the appropriate government emission conversion factors for greenhouse gas company reporting.
Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions have been reported in accordance with SECR requirements (where required), and the required subset of Scope 3 emissions have been reported in accordance with the published reporting standard for Carbon Reduction Plans and the Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard.
This Carbon Reduction Plan has been reviewed and signed off by the board of directors.
Reporting period: 1 September 2025 – 31 August 2026, FY 2025/2026.
Signed on behalf of SocialOptic Ltd: Benjamin Ellis, Managing Director.
Date: 21st September 2026
Publication date: 21st September 2026