The Carbon Catch-up with Kirsten Zoe Smith

This is the first of my new monthly series with Recorra, which I’m entitling the ‘Carbon Catchup’.

A lot of my role as Net Zero Strategist requires heavy research and ‘science-speak’, which I’d like to make more accessible. I’m going to be posting a roundup of the work I’ve been doing, what I’ve learnt, and how our net zero transition is going.

This month, I went to an event by the Southwark Climate Collective on decarbonising supply chains for SMEs, ran by the environmental consultancy Temple Group. They gave some really useful info on engaging with suppliers about their emissions and checking their sustainability credentials. Lots of chats about data collection nightmares, which I’m sure anyone involved in net zero strategy can understand! I also went to our site at Brighton to assess their emissions sources. We looked, of course, at our trucks – but maybe less obviously, at the fire extinguishers! These can actually be a source of Scope 1 emissions, as carbon dioxide is used to put out fires that cannot be extinguished with water – like electrical fires.

Maybe the most frustrating news this month though was the delay of the release of the UK Sustainability Disclosure Standards – they were due to come out in July but will now be released in Q1 of 2025. Disclosure and reporting is a key tool for businesses to reduce their emissions – but unfortunately this will delay the speed at which that happens. You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and when businesses understand the largest sources of their emissions, they can make smart choices to make real reductions.

Like I mentioned, this will be part of a new monthly update – please feel free to follow along on LinkedIn. Sustainability measures unfortunately often lack transparency, and hopefully this is something we can continue to tackle at Recorra.