The science is conclusive that human activities are causing the earth’s climate to change. A fast and fair transition to a net zero global economy is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. We recognise the important role we must play in facilitating this transition over the coming years.
Quilter climate change statement
Reducing our operational emissions
We have set a target to reduce our operational emissions (covering Scope 1 and 2 emissions) by 80% by 2030. This target forms part of the long-term incentive plan for our executive directors.
Our Scope 1 and 2 emissions in 2023 were 60.1% lower than our 2020 baseline showing good progress towards our target. The main driver of this reduction was our smaller office footprint in response to changing workspace needs. In the future, we expect to keep reducing our emissions gradually year on year towards our goal.
Engaging with suppliers to reduce emissions
In 2022, we started a project to help us understand and calculate our emissions from purchased goods and services, a type of emission we had not measured before.
We deepened this work in 2023 by broadening our knowledge of our spend base, its carbon impact, and the potential for creating change through our spend. We have been able to strategically identify our suppliers based on importance and size of spend. Going forward, we are looking to strengthen the relationship with these suppliers to learn about their sustainability journeys with the aim of influencing sustainable development through the allocation of our capital.
We assess the alignment of our suppliers with the Science Based Targets initiative every three months to track the progress of our engagement and to project the future reduction of emissions. This year we will announce a target outlining our ambitions to engage with more sustainability-focused suppliers.
Survey helps us act more sustainably
We ran our second Quilter sustainability survey in October 2023. This aim of this survey to measure how colleagues habits have changed since the first survey, which we did in June 2022 and to get feedback from our colleagues how we can act more sustainably.
The results helped us update our office specific emissions for Scope 3 emissions (employee commuting) and to calculate accurate carbon emissions figures in this area for the second year in a row.
In the 2023 survey, we changed the questions to capture small habitual changes that colleagues had made to their behaviours by letting them choose multiple commuting methods and the relevant proportion of these to their commute. This showed where colleagues had made gradual changes to their journeys and will help us understand the impact in the future.
Based on the feedback from our colleagues, we were able to make to make sustainable behaviours easier. For example, recycling guidance was placed at every bin in our offices and we engaged with local councils to improve public transport options. The feedback also helped us to create a specific plan of action for the next year. We intend to repeat this survey to track the impact of our improvements and review engagement.
Offering a discount for re-usable cups
We want to create a culture of sustainability, where our colleagues can make environmentally-friendly decisions. With this in mind, we looked for ways to change small habits of our colleagues that would have a lasting effect on sustainability on a large scale.
In our Southampton and London offices, hot drinks can be purchased from a coffee bar, which is usually provided in a single-use cup. In 2022, in conjunction with the International No Disposable Cup Day, we introduced a 10p discount for colleagues who used a re-usable cup and started tracking the uptake of this to see how receptive and willing to change our colleagues were.
In 2023, we increased the discount to 25p to match high street competitors. Since this change, we have seen engagement increase to an estimated 13.0%, up from 5.9% in the previous year.
We will continue to look at reducing our single-use product dependency through innovation and colleague engagement.
Introducing targets to reduce emissions caused by our investments
For the investments that we manage, no targets have been set yet as we are working on enhancing our data quality and systems. Later this year, Quilter Investors and Quilter Cheviot will launch climate action plans focused on the investments we manage on behalf of customers.