Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) occur in the atmosphere both naturally and because of human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels and land use change. GHGs produced by fossil-fuel combustion are primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O). These three GHGs account for more than 97 percent of U.S. total GHG emissions. Generally, GHGs are non-hazardous to health at normal ambient concentrations; however, GHGs absorb infrared radiation in the atmosphere, and an increase in emissions of these gases is the primary cause of warming of the climatic system, contributing to climate change.
Climate change is the variation in the Earth's climate (including temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind, and other meteorological variables) over time. Climate change is primarily driven by accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere due to the increased consumption of fossil fuels (e.g., coal, petroleum, and natural gas) since the early beginnings of the industrial age and accelerating into the mid- to late-20th century.
Achieved Net Zero GHG Footprint in Four Years
As a leader in air quality compliance, we have been concerned with the accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere and the resulting effects on climate change since our company's inception. As a result, Solutio has been committed to reducing our GHG footprint since 2014. Our net GHG footprint includes all direct and indirect increases and decreases in GHG emission associated with our company's activities. To achieve our net GHG footprint reductions, Solutio established the following goals:
- Reduce and/or mitigate our GHG footprint to the fullest extent practicable, while not compromising customer service, quality of our work, or company growth.
- Seek innovative and efficient ways to reduce and/or mitigate our net GHG footprint.
- Annually reduce our net GHG footprint to eventually achieve a net zero GHG footprint.
- For business airline travel, target a minimum offset (mitigation) ratio of 2:1 of GHG emissions.
- Aim to achieve a net zero GHG footprint within ten years (i.e., by 2025).
- Upon achieving a net zero GHG footprint, continue reductions to accomplish a sub-net zero (below zero) GHG footprint to the fullest extent attainable, without compromising service, work quality, or business growth.
Our strategy in reducing our GHG footprint was (and still is) first, to target GHG emissions from sources that we own or have direct control over (i.e., Scope 1 emissions). Second, to target GHG emissions that are a consequence of our business activities, but occur from sources not owned or controlled by Solutio (i.e., Scope 2 and 3 emissions) to achieve a minimum GHG emissions baseline (the minimum cost of doing business emissions). Lastly, followed by implementing mitigation measures to offset Solutio's baseline footprint to net zero GHG emissions and continuing mitigation efforts to a sub-net zero (below zero) GHG footprint.
- Scope 1 GHG Emissions: Covers emissions from sources that a company owns or controls directly. The only Scope 1 emissions generated from Solutio are emissions from burning fuel in our vehicles for local travel.
- Scope 2 GHG Emissions: Covers emissions that a company causes indirectly and come from the energy it purchases and uses. Solutio's Scope 2 emissions are the only emissions caused in generating the electricity that we use in our buildings.
- Scope 3 GHG Emissions: Encompasses emissions that are the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the company, but that the company indirectly affects in its value chain. A company's value chain consists of both its upstream and downstream activities. The only significant Scope 3 emissions for Solutio are GHG emissions from airplane travel.
As a result, Solutio was already actively pursuing GHG reductions/mitigations before the 2015 UN's Climate Change Paris Agreement. Furthermore, we achieved a net zero GHG footprint well before the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2023 call for net zero by 2050. In fact, we exceeded our own expectations and reached a net zero GHG footprint in 2018; only taking four years! To this day we are actively pursuing new innovations to continue maintaining a sub-net zero GHG footprint to the fullest extent attainable and have already reduced our GHG footprint by 595% (from 13.5 ton/yr to -66.6 ton/yr).
Sub-Net Zero GHG Footprint Since 2019
While Solutio only provides consulting services, like any other industry, we directly and indirectly generate GHG emissions. Solutio employees travel on airplanes, work in climate-controlled offices, use several computers, etc. Our emissions were historically driven by business travel and electrical energy consumption.
Consulting firms' (like Solutio) emissions are heavily weighted towards business travel; however, our business' local automobile travel (Scope 1 Emissions) and airplane travel (Scope 3 Emissions) came to a screeching halt with the spread of Covid-19. With the Covid-19 pandemic, Solutio became an unsuspecting participant in a natural experiment by driving GHG emissions cuts which offered mitigation opportunities that would have been unimaginable only a few years earlier. While our firm's travel is starting to return to pre-pandemic levels at the demands of our customers, we settled into a new normal of innovative means to reduce and/or mitigate our GHG emissions.
Scope 1 GHG Emissions, Automobile Travel:
Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, Solutio routinely (near daily) provided direct face-to-face consultations with our local customers, which resulted in local automotive travel. With the arrival of Covid-19, these direct consultations halted and were replaced with teleconferencing and secured file transfers. The success of this approach demonstrated that services could be effectively provided without direct face-to-face consultations, which consequently reduced our GHG emissions. By continuing this approach beyond the pandemic, GHG emissions associated with our local automobile travel were reduced by 93% (from 10 ton/yr to 0.7 ton/yr).
Scope 2 GHG Emissions, Electricity:
Historically Solutio's electricity consumption is a direct function of our company's growth and implementation of GHG mitigation measures; both consider the cost of doing business. Our two major growth factors were increases in personnel and the subsequent need to move to a larger office. From 2014 to 2023 Solutio personnel count grew by 29%, resulting in our transition into a 30% larger office building and increasing our electricity demand by 40%. Additionally, Solutio initiated an advanced, interactive, web-based training platform (e-Training) to mitigate GHG emissions; however, these initiatives slightly increased our electricity consumption. While our electricity consumption was up by 40% due to company growth and initiatives, our GHG emissions associated with electricity consumption dropped by 27% due to green energy efforts of the local utility.
Scope 3 GHG Emissions, Airline Travel:
Solutio's airline travel is influenced by the customers' needs and requests. Given our primary goal is to reduce and/or mitigate our GHG footprint without compromising customer service, quality of our work, or company growth; our travels and resulting emissions are primarily at the discretion of our customers and are simply the cost of doing business. While the Covid-19 pandemic drove emission cuts, our firm's airline travels are starting to rebound due to the demands of our customers. However, we have been very successful in piggybacking our travels to provide multi-person consultations and trainings, which eliminated the need for our customers' personnel to travel to our facility. As a result, generally, for every Solutio airline trip, we are eliminating about 10 to 20 customer travels; and therefore, offsetting/mitigating GHG travel emissions (see “Mitigation of Emissions” below). Since 2015, Solutio has targeted a minimum offset (mitigation) ratio of 2:1 of GHG emissions for all our travel; however, we have been achieving offsets at a ratio of 35:1 over the last two years.
Scope 3 GHG Emissions, Mitigation of Emissions:
Solutio faced a bare minimum cost of doing business level of GHG emissions (about 1 to 3 ton/yr); therefore, we looked for opportunities to offset our GHG footprint through mitigation initiatives. Mitigation involved specific company actions to reduce or prevent direct and indirect GHGs associated with Solutio's activities. Given an important aspect of our services is to provide air quality compliance training for our customers and the substantial GHG emissions associated with each student's travel, Solutio established several nontraditional training initiatives to mitigate (reduce or prevent) the students' travel emissions. The initiatives included (but were not limited to) piggybacking training and the development of an advanced, interactive web-based training platform, including the availability of reference training materials. Given the elimination of substantial GHG emissions associated with training travel, these mitigation initiatives effectively enabled Solutio to reach and surpass our net zero GHG footprint goal in 2019 and is exponentially yielding reduced GHG emissions each year.
