Following an in-depth carbon assessment, and two years of structural change to the business, LOM has achieved carbon neutral status.
In 2019, LOM began a journey to chart and radically reduce our impact on the planet and now the practice has reached our net zero goal by becoming a Carbon Neutral Organisation, certified by Carbon Footprint. This is a positive reflection of the major reduction in the practice’s carbon impact achieved over the past two years, as well as the necessary use of carefully selected and accredited offsetting programmes.
Carbon Footprint is a world-leading organisation that helps companies track and reduce their carbon emissions ‘at source’, and has provided its services to the United Nations, the UK Government, and countless blue-chip, small and medium-sized enterprises (SME), and public sector organisations across the globe.
“This is a positive reflection of the major reduction in the practice’s carbon impact achieved over the past two years.”
This milestone is the latest in LOM’s net zero journey and comes after we were certified as net zero in all direct (Scope 1 and 2) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions last year by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). We have also dramatically reduced our indirect (Scope 3) emissions too, such as business travel and the supply chain of the products we use.
While some of the improvement in carbon performance since 2019 has resulted from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, LOM has also been working hard to crystalise the structural changes we have made year on year to limit our impact on the planet.
As a Carbon Neutral Organisation, we still need to offset our residual footprint – but this has been reduced to less than one tonne of carbon per employee per year. Beyond this achievement we are addressing these last emissions though a combination of Gold Standard Community based energy efficiency projects and Verified Carbon Standard renewable energy projects, which both offset carbon effectively over a short timeframe. In addition, to mark our achievement, we are planting a tree in the UK for each of our employees as a positive investment in the future.
Although we have reached our goal of becoming a Carbon Neutral Organisation we know our journey must continue by reducing travel and refining procurement policies to cut down our Scope 3 emission rates. Importantly, we are also continuing our responsibility to deliver sustainable design and to assist our clients in reducing their carbon footprints – continuing to learn and develop as a practice to better understand how to make our projects as sustainable as possible. LOM is committed to creating a sustainable future and a built environment that works for people and the planet.
Richard is a director at LOM who leads a wide range of architectural and interior design commissions in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Australia.