Sustainability

ScanLAB recognises that we are in a climate emergency: the current path for human-based emissions will heat the planet beyond the ‘safe’ 1.5 degree threshold. We have always been conscious of the impact of our projects and work practices, but never rigorous in quantifying this impact. Now, we are taking specific, actionable steps to introduce a way of measuring the environmental, social and global impact of our work and set new standards for the way we deliver projects and experiences.

To achieve these goals, we have developed a set of resources and tools. We are sharing these, along with our policy documents and impact reports, with our community not because we think they are perfect, but rather in the hope of inspiring conversation.

Sustainability Policy

We’ve committed to continuously learning about our impact. We’ve committed to managing our operations so that we have the smallest negative impact, wherever possible. We want the work we make, and the way we work, to be a positive voice for change. We expect this will take a combination of research, careful monitoring and continuous learning. Practising and improving our accountability is core to our plan and our studio.

At all stages we are trying to make sure this policy is not about ticking boxes or achieving points. If an existing system isn’t suited to the way we work or the impact we have, we will do the work to adapt and think creatively about how we can be more useful and accurate. Alongside researching and developing our own sustainability tools, we will continue to benefit from the advice of consultants and experts in the space.

So far, our focus has been predominantly on our environmental impact. Over the next two years, we will expand this focus to our social and global impact.

Our headline policies are:

  • We have joined the SME Climate Commitment, which commits us to achieving Net Zero by 2030.
  • We commit to choosing the lowest impact option wherever possible, tracking our impact and placing value on continued decrease in impact over time.
  • We commit to making environmentally, socially, and sustainably conscious editorial, content and collaborator decisions.
  • We commit to offsetting any emissions we cannot reduce.

Our full policy can be download here - Sustainability Policy

Impact Reports

Each year, we will be publishing a report summarising our impact and our progress towards our goals.

Our first Impact Report predominantly deals with our environmental impact. It begins with an overview of our sustainability journey so far, reports our impacts to date, and outlines the concrete actions that we are taking to reduce them.

Our Impact Report can be downloaded here - 2021-22 Impact Report

Case Studies

Each year, we’ve committed to conduct at least one in-depth Case Study. Case Studies focus on a particular event, part of a production, technique, or decision making process within a project that feels worthy of deeper interrogation for ourselves and for the wider community.

Here are links to download these case studies:

Tracking And Resources

Monitoring is crucial to understanding our impact, to highlighting areas where significant reductions can be made, and to tracking, validating, and improving on the results of any changes we make. Starting with a basic environmental monitoring template provided by our consultants we have developed a custom Environmental Monitoring System (EMS) to track the carbon footprint of our studio and our projects.

We have also created a Sustainability Decision Tracking Tool (SDTT). This records the financial cost and CO2e emissions of our decisions, helping us to more fully understand our impact and informing our planning so that a less impactful alternative can be chosen where possible. The tool tracks the high, medium and low impact option for each decision, records the choice made, and outlines the rationale for that choice.