Manyone for the better

In 2023, we committed to publishing an annual report about our footprint and progress.

We keep our commitment by publishing this second report as transparently as possible and sincerely answering questions about our efforts.

For our first report in 2023, we estimated a 4-ton CO2 emission/FTE based on high-level Scope 1-3 calculations combined with industry averages. With 225 FTEs, we landed on 900 tCO2, which was all offset.

In 2024, we partnered with Emission Twin, a carbon footprint tracking platform. With their help, we successfully collected and measured 2023 emission data from all our locations worldwide. Their experts evaluated and certified our Scope 1-3 totals.

Last year, we committed to educating ourselves on sustainability.

Progress on this commitment has been slower than desired. Still, we have two of what we hope will be many educational sessions planned for early 2025: "Sustainability Introduction" and "Systems Thinking in Design." See the commitments for 2025 below for more details.

We committed to becoming ISO 14001 certified. ISO 14001 provides companies like ours with a standard for measuring and improving our environmental impact. Besides the clear benefits of incorporating environmental issues into how we manage Manyone, we also see an increasing number of clients demanding such certification as part of their own environmental accountability.

Upon starting the process, we took a second look at the certifications needed – based on our own and our clients' expectations, needs, and requirements, which are evolving rapidly due to new regulations. ISO 14001 might not be adequate for our global needs. Thus, we're still evaluating the most effective sustainability certification and standards for our business (incl. EcoVadis). This process will be completed in 2025.

Each year, we communicate about our carbon footprint and efforts to improve our environmental impact.

The numbers reported relate to the previous calendar year. I.e., this year's report covers the emissions for 2023, the report for 2025 will cover 2024 emissions, etc.

The GHG report shows that our total emissions for 2023 were much lower than emissions for 2022. The difference is more than 300 tCO₂e or one tCO₂e less per employee. This is primarily due to the calculation method, which for 2023 is much more precise thanks to our partnership with Emission Twin. In 2022, we also held our first team of teams summit in Denmark, which involved significant air travel.

In 2023, we increased restrictions on business travel by air, again lowering emissions. However, travel between our locations and on-project travel to our clients' sites or markets still accounted for significant emissions.

Throughout the year, we’ve kept focusing on reducing the amount of flying by taking advantage of every feature our suite of online collaboration software (Zoom, Miro, Figma, etc.) provides us.

We’re continually exploring and selecting lower-carbon options for short-distance travel, and are still committed to reducing overall air travel emissions by 10-15% by swapping fossil jet fuel with Sustainable Aviation Fuel via Goodwings. The rest will continue to be offset.

Our main emissions driver for 2023 was purchased goods and services.

This includes the hardware we buy and lease, food and drink at our offices, and emissions related to cloud services (hosting and SaaS).

We have offset a portion of the total emissions by purchasing Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) carbon credits from a nature-based removal project (ex-post reforestation) in Uruguay, neutralizing 63 tons of CO₂e. We have also reduced four tCO₂e with biofuel.

Good intentions won't cut it. To make change happen in 2025 and beyond, we’re focusing the phrasing of our commitments to be more specific, time-bound, quantifiable, and actionable. The three commitments are:

We will publish an annual report about our footprint and progress.

Why does it matter?
One word: Accountability.

How will we do it?
We’ll assign a dedicated sustainability initiative owner at Manyone to drive the needed efforts throughout the year and manage the process of updating and publishing the report annually. Our next report will be ready in early Q1 2026.

Based on feedback from all Manyones, our clients, partners, and friends, we'll continue to improve the format in the year(s) to come. Progress is better than perfection.

We will educate ourselves on sustainability.

Why this approach?
Sustainability is a vast and intricate field, and we must learn constantly – especially about climate change terms, concepts, and strategies. Knowledge is an essential first step towards creating real change.

How will we do it?
We'll design and run internal, company-wide training sessions featuring both our own and external sustainability experts.

In addition to gaining a deeper understanding of key terms and concepts, we will educate ourselves on regenerative and circular business models, explore how to adopt more sustainable interaction design patterns, and design with the complete product life cycle in mind, whether digital or physical.

The planning of the sessions will be completed in early 2025 and presented in April. The sessions will happen throughout the rest of 2025. After each session, we’ll publish a summary on our socials with key takeaways to give back to the community.

We will develop, test, and evaluate a methodology for measuring the climate impact of our services and products.

Why this approach?
Manyone exists to help our clients shape everything that’s next – faster and for the better. Our most straightforward path to positively impacting the climate crisis is through the work we deliver for our amazing clients. However, we have yet to use a standardized method to assess the impact of our efforts.

How will we do it?
In Q1 2025, we’ll use our internal expertise in change management plus market best practices to prototype an initial methodology for estimating the impact of our work with clients. We'll pilot that methodology in Q2 and Q3 2025 on at least five projects. In Q4, we will evaluate the lessons learned and improve the methodology so that it can be used more persistently from 2026 onwards.

The methodology and its evaluation will be shared publicly.

Based on the insights from our GHG report, we will set reduction targets for our main emission drivers and outline the necessary steps.

Why this approach?
Now that we have a science-based method for estimating total emissions, we can more confidently commit to reduction targets and plans. Reducing emissions is a better approach than simply offsetting them after the fact.

How will we do it?
As we collect data for the 2024 GHG report in Q1 and Q2 of 2025, we will decide on realistic and ambitious reduction targets for the year, primarily for purchased goods and services and business travel. We will also revisit electricity sourcing for all our locations.