The first year of Sylvera’s net zero target: challenges and opportunities

Net zero is the only plan for the world’s most pressing problem: fighting climate change. However,  action and investment into the net zero transition is nowhere near where it needs to be to avoid climate disaster. We want to change that – we want to see a world where climate strategy is corporate strategy. To build this, Sylvera’s mission is to incentivize investment in real climate action.  

We provide carbon data that helps companies and countries drive investment to the most critical climate solutions to drive real net zero progress. As such, it’s important our company has our own net zero targets, and transparently reports on our progress and challenges. 

‍Sylvera’s net zero commitments ‍

In August 2023, the SBTi validated Sylvera’s net zero target, where we committed to:

• By 2030: reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by at least 42%, and reduce our Scope 3 emissions below the 2022 base level; and
• By 2035: reduce all our emissions (scope 1, 2 & 3) by at least 90%, and neutralize the rest

To address our residual emissions each year, we committed to purchasing and retiring high- integrity carbon credits. 

2023 overview

To advance our targets, we established a Net Zero Committee to lead initiatives such as reducing our energy usage and making our travel more conscious and sustainable. A year on, we’re reporting on our own emissions and the steps we’ve taken to combat them.

In total, our 2023 emissions were 951.27 tCO2e, across all three scopes: 

• Scope 1: 0.08 tCO2e  (vs. 1.39 tCO2e in 2022)
• Scope 2: 50.79 tCO2e (vs 27.04 tCO2e in 2022)
• Scope 3: 900.4 tCO2e (vs 784.48 tCO2e in 2022)

Overall, emissions increased by about 17%. Our Scope 1 emissions were reduced, mostly as a result of an intentional effort to decrease our Field Data team’s fuel consumption. However, as our business and team grew this year, we travelled more, expanded our office spaces, added more clients and processed more data, leading to an increase in our Scope 2 and 3 emissions. 

Reduce…

According to data from ESG_VC, one in five startups planned to set a net zero target in 2024 and only eight percent already had a net zero target in 2023. While that number has increased from five percent a few years ago, there’s still a long way to go. Unfortunately though, the SBTi’s SME route can be challenging for growth-stage companies. 

For a business the size of Sylvera, the SBTi only offers an SME route, which requires a 42% scope 1 and 2 reduction by 2030. With 2022 as our base year, only two years after starting out, and lofty ambitions as a high-growth tech company, we knew those would be difficult targets to achieve. 

However, our emissions grew substantially less than the growth of the overall business, and we’re aiming to continue to grow in that manner, even if we cannot reduce emissions absolutely in the next few years. 

…And Invest.

Where we could not reduce our emissions, we invested in carbon credits from highly-rated projects. For our 2023 emissions, these included: 

• 1500 credits from Katingan (rated AA) (vintage 2019); and
• 500 credits from Mataven (rated A) (vintage 2018).

For our own investments, we approached investing in credits similarly to how we advise our clients to in the early stages of their carbon journeys. Our criteria were: 

• Only retire from ≥ A-rated projects from highly regarded project developers 
• Where multiple projects are available, optimize for those with strong co-benefits 
• Aim to retire more than our residual emissions, to protect against future loss events and to maximize our contributions
• Aim for a diversified portfolio of project types, with removal credits where available 
• Aim to purchase from the Global South 
• Aim to purchase directly from developers

Not all of these parameters can be achieved in a purchasing cycle. It can be difficult to find the credits you need at the right price at the right time. To help, we put our own tools to work, including Connect to Supply to find supply of our desired credits. 

Moving forward

Ultimately, we need to continue to reduce our emissions as much as possible and invest to address what we can’t reduce. Next year, our Net Zero Committee and business are committed to finding new ways to bring us closer to achieving our goals, from reducing air travel to choosing vendors with their own net zero targets to decrease our Scope 3 emissions. 

Interested in joining our team and helping the world’s largest companies make progress on net zero targets, as well as our own? We’re hiring! Check out our careers page and see if you might be a fit.