Hampshire Cultural Trust carries out its Carbon Footprint with Greenly

1.4k

Number of round trips London / New York

190

Annual emissions in number of British people

213

Hectares of growing forest needed to compensate

What can you tell us about your company? 🔍

Hampshire Cultural Trust (HCT) functions as an independent charity overseeing and assisting visitor attractions, museums, art galleries, and arts centers throughout the county of Hampshire in the UK. The trust organizes a diverse array of workshops, classes, events, and exhibitions. It annually welcomes more than 15,000 children through its immersive education program, engages in projects with individuals, groups, and communities lacking access to culture, and manages 2.5 million objects associated with Hampshire's rich history. With a staff of approximately 140 and over 400 volunteers, HCT has been actively working to understand and mitigate its environmental impact since 2019.

In the pursuit of environmental improvement, HCT has developed comprehensive action plans for the upcoming 12 months. A specialized project team comprising 12-14 individuals from various parts of the organization dedicates half a day per week to HCT's environmental initiatives. Notably, with the assistance of a HEIF grant from the University of Sussex, Josephine Lethbridge and Jo Lindsay Walton, supported by other DHCC members, collaborated with HCT in 2023. Their focus was to explore HCT's approach to decarbonization and provide support, including the involvement of the carbon accounting platform Greenly as a project partner.

Why Greenly? 🌱

Greenly positioned itself as a tech solution to the complex tasks of carbon accounting and the creation of carbon management plans. Greenly provided us with an accessible package for annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reporting, climate expert support, and automated carbon reduction suggestions!

They employed a hybrid approach, combining spend-based and activity-based assessments to calculate carbon footprints and the platform offered a flexible mix, emphasizing that carbon accounting should support actionable decarbonization strategies.

What were the outcomes of the Carbon Footprint report? 📊

The collaboration with HCT yielded detailed emissions data, offering a level of granularity that really impressed our team. The insights aligned with HCT's expectations, revealing areas for focus and highlighting unexpected emissions sources. The main benefit of Greenly's analysis was its potential to lend clarity and gravitas to HCT's existing plans, aiding in funding applications, stakeholder engagement, and internal decision-making.

Our team expressed immense enthusiasm for the detailed emissions data and the diverse charts and perspectives available. A team member conveyed their excitement, stating, "We're all a bit overwhelmed by how fantastic it is... It probably would have taken us a few years to reach this point."

In general, the distribution of emissions across various facets of HCT's operations, and the implications for key areas of focus, really aligned with our expectations.

The primary advantage of the analysis was perceived in its potential to bring clarity and significance to the team's existing plans. One team member remarked, "We were really stuck. Some people want to see data, figures, and proof supporting proposed approaches and action plans. So Greenly has really assisted with that." 

Another added, "Just having the data is fantastic. There are numerous ways we can use it – in funding applications, advocating our case, pushing initiatives with the council, and internally as well, to get people on board."

This could involve increased encouragement from Greenly for senior staff participation, especially during the final presentation, and greater involvement of staff from various departments in data collection.

What were some challenges addressed? 🤔

We faced challenges in accessing expertise, prioritizing actions, and mobilizing resources for sustainability initiatives. Greenly's platform addressed these challenges by providing comprehensive emissions data, facilitating informed decision-making, and offering dedicated staff time for data compilation.

Greenly, acknowledge HCT as a slightly atypical client, embracing the opportunity to apply its tools and expertise in a new context. The collaboration exemplified Greenly's commitment to expanding its services to different types of clients, aligning with its goal of creating a highly automated platform.

What is next? 💚

At time of writing, we are working on refining our recommendations for project partners. We hope to continue to work with both HCT and Greenly, and have recently sought follow-on funding (AHRC IAA and AHRC Net Zero Design Accelerator) to support this work. On the Greenly side, we see potential for expanding resources to support clients in using data internally and externally, opportunities around quantifying and visualising uncertainty, as well as localising decarbonisation recommendation resources, and transforming approaches to carbon offsetting.