'The solution is direct carbon emissions reduction, not offsetting': Jigsaw24 CEO on channel's decarbonisation challenge

Jigsaw24 is aiming to announce aggressive plans to reduce its scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by the end of 2022. Its CEO reflects on the scale of the challenge facing the industry

This interview was carried out as part of CRN's Channel Net Zero Report, which is available exclusively to CRN Essential subscribers

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Anyone who's visited your Nottingham HQ can see how seriously you take sustainability. What's your long-term strategy to reduce emissions?

What we're working towards, in the next year or so, is to have a carefully documented, comprehensive plan for the determination of our total carbon footprint for scopes, one, two, and three, with a comprehensive plan to reduce this towards zero over time, without the need for offsets. That's what we're aiming for.

We've got to try and get our carbon footprint down to zero without emissions. And that is a very hard thing to do. But we've all got to aim to do this. I think there are three objectives. One is the company-specific objectives - in our case, Jigsaw 24. Second are the industry specific objectives. So what can we all do as an IT sector? And that will include things like couriers for transport and how our goods transported up and down the country? And thirdly, what can we do as a society? What can Britain do? An example of that would be when can Britain hold its head up and say 100 per cent of its electricity has been generated at home by low carbon technologies? Will it be 2030? 2035? Only when that has been achieved can we fully have a chance of getting there.

We all know this needs to move away from the mindset of well, I've documented it all and I've offset it all, so I'm fine. That is the wrong approach. We've got to document it, offset it - if you want to - in the interim. But that is not the solution. The solution is direct carbon emissions reduction. And that has not yet been mandated at all in the SECR. And over time, it needs to be. But that's a big job.

Everyone's starting to realise that scope 1 and 2 are relatively easy to do, and that it's all about scope 3.

The other thing I hope we will achieve this year is to say that we are now 100 per cent, powered by renewable energy. But again, that'll be towards the end of the year, because that's taken a six-month hit because of the energy crisis

Most larger IT providers have begun reporting their scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions thanks to the arrival of SECR. Do you think the reporting requirements around carbon emissions will get tougher as the 2020s progress?

SECR is a positive move. It's the first step in the complete revolution that society has got to undertake in the next few years. It is a modest and welcome first step. It's a bit like the gender pay gap reporting that's mandated and therefore brings the topic forward. My understanding of SECR is that you just have to detail what your emissions are and it's not essential to put in a plan to reduce them. Obviously that is where we need to get to, but the first thing to do is to admit what problem you have, and to try and quantify the problem. And thereafter, you can take remedial action. So in terms of reporting where we are it's a good start.

I think it should be made compulsory for all companies. I'm not sure that the government should stick with the limit of 250 employees. Maybe there should be an interim band - for instance, 100. Long term, we need as many employing organisations as possible to be reporting on this. And we need to get to a point when it is mandated in future years to show how you can reduce your carbon footprint rather than just stating the emissions.

What will fall under scope 3 for Jigsaw24 and firms like you?

This is very crude, and you can't say the same for all organisations, but I would say that scope 1 and 2 are circa 10 per cent of the issue, and a one- or two-year task. Scope 3 is 90 per cent of the challenge and - to be blunt - is a 10- to 15-year job. That is where the huge complexity and magnitude of the challenge really lies. For Jigsaw24, the key challenges are employee travel, and couriers transporting hardware. If you think about being an employee, how do you get to work and back? You could work from home. That's one option that's low carbon, you could drive by electric car, if you can afford one, you could use public transport, you could share a car. Or you can walk, jog, or cycle. We need to enthuse all of our colleagues with those choices, and try to make sure it's one of those not travelling on your own in an internal combustion engine car.

And the second one is to work with all of the couriers so the many millions of tonnes of hardware travelling millions of miles each year is done using EVs. I would hope before the turn of the decade they're largely transporting stuff with EVs. That's what we need to get to. If you can crack those two issues, on top of ensuring that you're using 100 per cent renewable energy generated electricity, then you're well on the way.

There are 15 categories within scope three. Each category could take three months to measure. So not all companies would want to measure all 15 categories. For example, one of the 15 categories is franchising. And clearly, that doesn't affect all companies. You're not going to have to measure all 15, but you're going to have to respond to all 15. I'm telling you, it's a lot of work. And this isn't just measuring it, you've then got to reduce it. I've just been through some quick ways to reduce the employee travel issue. But some of them are very complex.

How can your vendor partners help?

There is an international standard, the ISO 14040 and 14044. That gives the carbon footprint of those products according to several criteria, but very quickly, in summary, they are the components for manufacture, the type of manufacturing and how clean the manufacturing process is, the distribution and packaging of the product, the usage of the product over a blended three- or five-year period and then the after-life product recovery, and recycling and reuse. If you measure all of those, according to those two ISO standards, which Apple has done, you come up with a carbon footprint for the products. For example, the entry level iPhone 13 has a carbon footprint of 64 kilogrammes. And that is in the Apple environmental product declaration. We need get to a point where there is an environmental product declaration for every single piece of IT hardware, and this needs in time to be mandated. And when that is the case, we will then as an IT sector all be able to do a carbon invoice.

Would that be something that you would then feed into your scope 3?

It's important that these things aren't double counted. They're going to have to fall under someone's scope 3 and I think they would fall under the manufacturers'. But then what happens when ownership changes? This is where the devil is in the detail. But if a manufacturer has professionally documented environmental product declarations and then these are transported in a responsible manner, as discussed, by couriers with electric vehicles, and then they are recycled at the end, that's a good start.

Scope 3 is highly complex. And it's got to be done in a professional and honest manner. Nobody wants double counting. But it's to do with ownership. The more it gets mandated, and the higher the hurdles, the more we'll have to do. Everyone's starting to realise that scope 1 and 2 are relatively easy to do, and that it's all about scope 3.

What would you do differently if you were starting your sustainability endeavours from scratch?

The global warming crisis was first reported on the front page of The New York Times in 1987. We've all been too slow - everybody has failed. And now we've now got to catch up a lot more quickly. Facing up to the problem earlier is the first lesson and realising the gravity of the situation, but also accepting it as an exciting dynamic challenge, because I think it is an exciting, dynamic challenge.

I'm coming to the conclusion that offsetting is not the solution. It's like having a big wound on your arm and then sticking a plaster on.

And technology is going to play a huge role in this. We've got to improve the way we behave and reduce our emissions. But we will reach a point when it's down to what they call hard-to-abate emissions. We're going to have to start removing carbon from the atmosphere. And technology will play a role in that. It's going to come out through some form of direct capture, prototypes of which are all over the world - many of which seem to be backed by Bill Gates. But technology is playing a role already, with the increased use of software, PDFs, Zoom, Teams, and now a different form of technology with electric vehicles and battery storage that will mean that when we do have to travel, it's not as bad. So technology is really the solution here, along with of course improving the way we behave.

Do you think too much emphasis is being placed on offsetting?

I'm coming to the conclusion that offsetting is not the solution. It's like having a big wound on your arm and then sticking a plaster on. Or like sinning, and then buying a redemption from the church - don't sin in the first place. I think many of the activities which entail offsetting are good activities. I think we need to plant a lot more trees. Did you know Britain has 13 per cent tree cover compared to 38 per cent on the European continent? We need more trees. But that isn't offsetting. That's just a good thing to do.