Governance Financial Statements
Strategic Report
41
LEAVING A RESPONSIBLE FOOTPRINT We are making good progress to achieving our 2030 target to reduce our scope 3 emissions by 50% against our 2019 baseline. The emissions from our investment activities make up the majority of our scope 3 emissions, and as of 28 June 2024, we have achieved a 36% emissions reduction on our investment portfolio (on a tCO 2 e/$m nominal invested basis). Furthermore, we have reduced the carbon footprint of our operations (Scope 1 and 2) by 90% since 2019 (market based). One of the biggest contributions to this is from our switch to a Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin 1 (REGO) certified energy supply. 99% of our electricity supply is now from renewable sources. The remaining carbon emissions primarily come from gas usage in our offices. We continue to optimise our heating schedule to better align with colleague attendance, reducing our energy consumption and emissions. We voluntarily include in our accounting, gas emissions from shared facilities within the buildings for which we are tenants, such as communal cafeterias. We feel this voluntary step allows us to acknowledge that we still have some indirect gas emissions from our office activities and to take the responsibility to engage with our landlords to assist with their own transition. We are continuing with colleague education on the climate impact of different methods of travel to continue to encourage a more sustainable way of conducting our business. During the year we set carbon budgets to monitor business travel activities and encourage emission reductions. We have reduced the carbon footprint of our business travel activities by 69% since 2019.
As a growing business, we are seeing a naturally associated increase in requirements for business travel. This means we are likely to need to use more offsets than planned by the end of 2025, in order to bring our business travel emissions to zero. We understand that by offsetting more than 10% we will not meet the SBTi’s definition of ‘net zero’. If we constrain business travel further we risk impacting our business growth. We acknowledge that including business travel (as a Scope 3 activity) within our Scope 1 and 2 target was ambitious and we are proud of the reduction we have made so far. We also have to balance the growth requirements of the business with the fact that our business travel emissions are small in comparison to our broader Scope 3 emissions. As such we have decided to remove business travel from our 2025 net zero target. We have re-aligned it with the net zero targets we have set for our other applicable Scope 3 emissions, where we have set a target to achieve an overall 50% reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Having already made a 69% reduction on business travel emissions since 2019, we are proud of the progress we have made to date. 1 The Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) scheme provides transparency to consumers about the proportion of electricity that suppliers source from renewable electricity.
90 % reduction in scope 1 and 2, against baseline
99 % of our purchased electricity is from renewable sources (REGO 1 certified)
250,000 trees planted since 2021 through our partner ecotree
CREATING A FAIR WORLD Creating a fair world is directly influenced by the way we carry out our business and also the way we treat each other, namely colleagues, customers, suppliers, or members of society at large. We have committed to: The HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter, The BITC Race at Work Charter, The Centre for Ageing Better’s Age- friendly Employer Pledge, The Workplace Menopause Pledge, ABI Transparency on Parental Pay and Making Flexible Work campaigns, Disability Confident Employer Scheme. We are members of: The Asset Owner Diversity Charter, Progress Together, Group for Autism, Insurance, Investment and Neurodiversity, 55/Redefined, The UK Stewardship Code. We are also in partnership with impact platform, OnHand, allowing colleagues to track their sustainability actions alongside local opportunities to do good. You can read more about Creating a fair world within our Colleagues and Culture section on pages 54 to 57. 50 % of our board are women (as at 31 December 2024) 47 % women in the most senior population*, exceeding 40% target
MAKING A POSITIVE IMPACT We understand we have a long way to go, including continuing to invest in assets that support a positive impact. Like others we are on a journey to fulfil this goal. Below we provide a breakdown of emissions relevant to Just. For some Scope 3 categories we are working on a methodology to allow us to calculate these figures. We do not consider Scope 3 categories 2 and 8-14, inclusive, to be relevant to us due the nature of our business. For our Scope 3 emissions, our investments make up the majority and we have made good progress in reducing these by 36% since 2019, on course to reach our 50% reduction target by 2030. Although we have not calculated all relevant scopes, we remain confident that we are on track to achieve our 2030 and 2050 net zero targets. In the reporting year we increased the requirement for our office-based employees to attend the office a minimum of 50% of their working time (previously 40%). This has naturally led to an increase in employee commuting emissions, however relative to our base year we have still seen a 45% decrease in emissions on a per person basis. Emissions – tCO 2 e 1,2 2024 2023 Scope 1 natural gas and fugitive gas 3,4 70 73 Scope 2 purchased electricity 4 202 177 Total emissions (location based) 272 250 Scope 2 purchased electricity 4 2 1 Total emissions (market based) 72 74 Scope 3 waste generated in operations 4 5.3 4.1 Scope 3 business travel 4,5 166 145 Scope 3 employee commuting/homeworking 4 1,016 666
16 % of senior leadership are from an ethnic minority background, target of >16%* * The ‘senior population’ definition for our December 2026 targets have been aligned with the HM Treasury Women in Finance Charter and comprises Executive committee members and their direct reports.
£ 112 k donated to charity by the business and our colleagues in 2024 £ 315 m invested in eligible green and social assets in 2024
Emissions – tCO 2 e
1 per $m nominal
Scope 3 investments 6
215
234
Usage – KwH Scope 1 natural gas and fugitive gas 3
382,241 401,266 974,407 854,557
Scope 2 purchased electricity (location based) Scope 2 purchased electricity (market based)
7,552
5,416
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