Licence Check has become carbon negative ahead of its deadline thanks to carbon-cutting measures including home working, online meetings, car sharing and public transport use.

Thanks to widespread adoption of major carbon-cutting measures, Licence Check has exceeded its target ahead of time

The licence checking and risk management business, part of the Compliance Division of the Ebbon Group, had targeted becoming carbon neutral in its operations by the end of 2023 under plans put in place with carbon consultancy Auditel.

But thanks to widespread adoption across the business of a raft of carbon-cutting measures, the company has exceeded its target ahead of time and actually gone carbon negative, reducing its carbon emissions by 57% overall. To offset the emissions not yet eliminated, it also purchased carbon credits equivalent to 130% of its footprint, effectively achieving carbon-negative status.

The most significant shift was supporting employees in working from home as commuting represented 20% of its total carbon emissions; the largest single source. It’s also moved away from face-to-face meetings and more than 90% of sales meetings conducted in 2023 to date have been conducted online or over the phone.

Where the company had unavoidable emissions, from its office locations for example, it purchased 40 carbon credits on the Gold Standard Marketplace, equivalent to 40 tonnes of CO2, investing in the scheme to provide cleaner, safer drinking water in Cambodia, thereby improving health and protecting the environment.

Managing director Keith Allen commented: “This is a great achievement several months ahead of the deadline that we had set ourselves. It has been a united effort across the business to reduce our carbon emissions by 57% in just 18 months.”

Licence Check has also enhanced its DAVIS (Driver and Vehicle Information Solution) platform to help its clients reduce their own carbon footprints.

One example is its DAVIS Fleet platform for fleet management, which enables fleet managers to measure the current CO2 emissions of their vehicles, with the ability to set targets to reduce emissions helping to improve their company’s carbon footprint. A dedicated dashboard for measuring CO2 is available, which helps businesses take crucial steps to achieving net zero status.

The DAVIS grey fleet solution meanwhile offers the capability of automatically accepting or rejecting vehicles based on age, engine size and/or emissions, enabling fleet managers to gain tighter control of their grey fleet’s carbon emissions.

And DAVIS Coaching, the new training and development solution, features content on eco-driving and electric vehicles to support the education of company drivers, highlighting Licence Check’s commitment to reducing the environmental impact of corporate fleets.

“We are a firm believer in setting a target for net zero as early as possible and have within our suite of solutions, tools to help our customers take the same steps,” added Allen.