2020 Review Actions:

To establish THINKHOUSE’s 2020 carbon footprint, we used the same format as 2019, analysing our impact across three key areas:

1. Office overheads (Utilities (heating, electricity), Consumables (paper), IT goods (laptops, phones, monitors, etc.), Wastes - recycling and landfilling

2. Travel: commuting from home to the office

3. Travel: business travel (on general business, non-chargeable)

Note: This covers scope 1 and 2 emissions. The CO2 conversion factors are taken from SEAI for the electricity and natural gas, and for most other inputs are taken from the Ecoinvent database, version 3.5. Additional inputs from 2020 were sourced via GoClimate.com and Healthyworkstations.com.

Outcomes:

Thinkhouse’s carbon footprint for 2020 came to a total of 26.4 tonnes of CO2.

Broken down, the main source of our impact came from office overheads, the largest impact area being our energy - gas (13.5 tonnes) and electricity (4.3 tonnes). The single largest impact, gas, comprised 51% of the overall CO2 footprint.

1. Office overheads: 21.6 tonnes

2. Travel // commuting from home to the office: 3.7 tonnes

3. Travel // business travel: 1.1 tonnes

Key Takeaways & Challenges:

2020 was an unusual year. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we began working from home from March 2020. It was incredible to see the carbon reductions achieved due to remote working. However, this exercise has also made it clear the challenges that lie ahead with a growing headcount in a hybrid working environment. Calculating commuting impacts was a logistical challenge as we had to split the year between on site working and remote working - the number of commuting days was different for everyone. This also meant that we reviewed our Environmental Policy to include working from home guidelines and tips. However, the near-elimination of business travel and commuting was a massive reduction in our overall impact, reducing our total carbon footprint.

• Comparing our impact in 2019 (47.9 tonnes) and 2020, we reduced our carbon footprint by 45% (26.4 tonnes of CO2). This included a reduction in waste by over 65% from 7 tonnes to 2.5 tonnes (also in large part due to working from home).
• Going forward into 2021, we expect to maintain a large degree of remote working, while also looking at the implications of the return to the office on our footprint.
• The biggest impact area of energy consumption is a ripe opportunity to reduce our impact into the future by switching to greener energy sources.
• Another noteworthy element to our impact this year is that in 2020 we did not reduce our employee headcount. An ongoing challenge on our carbon impact is our growing headcount.

Ongoing Scope 3 Actions & Next Steps:

As part of the Ad Net Zero roadmap we are also continuing to work on addressing and reducing our Scope 3 impact, engaging with the likes of Purpose Disruptor tools, driving forward new conversations and embedding meaningful action across our industry.

As part of this work we will require employees to be AdGreen trained, host twice monthly internal learning sessions called ‘Friday’s For Future’, and have an Earth Day webinar planned for 2021, ‘Delay is the new Denial’, to drive meaningful engagement with other stakeholders and people across the industry.

Net Zero Goals

In line with science based targets of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees, our goal (minimum) is to half emissions from our 2019 baseline by 2030.

Year on year, the goal is a 7-10% reduction rate from our 2019 baseline. The pandemic created an unusual circumstance in 2020. While we expect emissions may rise from here in the coming years, our goal is to maintain this level of reduction as we grow.