Form3 Cares about the Planet

At Form3 we believe we have a responsibility to reduce our environmental impact which is why we’re working hard to ensure we develop our environmental strategy in line with available science. We’re anti-greenwashing, and so we don’t want to just appear green, we want to determine the source of our emissions and actively reduce these as much as possible. We will then offset the unavoidable remaining emissions using verified carbon offsets, which means they are guaranteed to reduce/remove greenhouse emissions.

A key part of being ‘anti-greenwashing’ is being open and transparent, which is why we want to share where we are on our sustainability journey. 

Remote working

Being 100% remote reduces our commuting emissions. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) if everyone able to work from home globally did so for just one day a week, global CO2 emissions would decline by 24 million tonnes annually (equivalent to the bulk of Greater London's annual CO2 emissions); however, a considerable shift to working from home may have impacts elsewhere in the energy system. 

Cycle to work scheme

We utilise this scheme which reduces commuting emissions for those who do still commute to our offices and generally outside of the office too and is available in different countries.

Travel

We ask that all employees and contractors who travel by air offset their emissions. Our policies around travel also encourage employees to favour public transport over cars, and trains over planes, even if that means that the travel costs a bit more.

Equipment

All of our employees and contractors are able to rent office equipment through Hofy, an equipment rental platform. This equipment is shipped from local depots, minimising our carbon emissions and once it reaches the end of its commercial life, Hofy donates it to charities to be reused or recycled.  

Office space

Our London office is equipped with energy efficient products/technology such as motion and daylight sensors, low energy lighting, recycling waste streams and energy efficient heating and cooling.

London data centres

The nature of data centres, such as running 24 hours a day, using heating and cooling methods and generally using large amounts of energy means they are bound to have high emissions, so it’s important to reduce their environmental impact where we can. Already, our data centres use 100% renewable energy as well as other sustainable tech which reduces energy consumption. As data centres have a significant environmental impact, reducing our need for data centres, and in turn the emissions from the needed data centres will be key for Form3 as we scale.

Cloud data

According to AWS we saved 198.6 tCO2e between February 2021 – February 2022 by using their service rather than on-premises equivalents. However, there is some debate around whether emissions are being ‘hidden’ within the cloud.

Here’s just a handful of the things we’ve committed to doing over the next few months: 

• We’re currently working on calculating our carbon footprint. This is the total amount of greenhouse gases generated by our actions. An accurate carbon footprint is key in understanding our climate impact and identifying emission-reducing opportunities.
• The first step in determining our carbon footprint is collecting precise ‘activity’ data and then calculating the emissions. The next step is to have our carbon footprint externally verified, we can then confirm our carbon footprint for 2021, which will be our benchmark year. We will use this year to set science-based targets for reducing our emissions in line with becoming a net zero organisation.
• We would like to become a net zero organisation as we believe businesses play an important role in limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as per the UN Paris Agreement. Becoming a net zero organisation means we won’t be adding any extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This is a long-term goal, but we’re on the right track!