Softcat’s journey to carbon neutrality in tech services

Organisations, especially in the public sector, face growing pressure to choose sustainable service contracts and work with sustainable suppliers to respond to climate change and the UN Strategic Development Goals.

Softcat isn’t immune to this pressure and recognises it. We also have ambitious carbon targets to achieve a net zero value circle by 2040.

In the services division, we have a strong focus on ensuring we are not only building new, sustainable support and managed services, but also ensuring our existing services are sustainable. Consequently, we are embarking on an ambitious journey to deliver substantial carbon reduction across our existing services portfolio.

Softcat took an industry-leading unique approach to this by launching a project to achieve PAS 2060 carbon neutral status for our services. In FY24, we achieved carbon neutrality status for one of our biggest services, Softcat Cisco Support (SCS), benefiting hundreds of Softcat customers.

In addition, we recently achieved carbon neutrality for our Managed Device Lifecycle Service (MDL) after making this a priority following calculations showing this service produced the most carbon compared to all of our other services.

But what exactly is PAS 2060?

PAS 2060 is an internationally recognised standard for carbon neutrality, developed by the British Standards Institution and implemented in 2010. The standard encompasses four key stages to achieving carbon neutrality: measurement, reduction, offsetting, and documentation. It builds on existing environmental standards, such as ISO 14001 and PAS 2050, which address product emissions throughout their lifespans.

What’s the process for PAS 2060?

Achieving PAS 2060 certification involves a thorough and multi-step process, which hasn’t been without its challenges. The initial step was to identify all organisations involved in the delivery of our service. Each project involves collaborating with these companies and obtaining the relevant Scope 1-3 data from each to calculate the emissions generated in the service delivery. In this work, we found that organisations are at varying stages in their sustainability journeys, which adds complexity to the process.

Once we had all the data, we developed a comprehensive ‘Carbon Reduction Plan’ detailing how emissions can be reduced over time. This considers factors such as engineer travel, logistics, and warehousing locations. The overarching goal is that as this plan matures, we will see a significant reduction in emissions for each service under PAS 2060 across the supply chain.

Carbon removals vs. carbon offsetting

To ensure we achieve true carbon neutrality in this work, Softcat opts for ‘carbon removals’ instead of conventional carbon offsetting. What’s the difference? Carbon removal projects are distinct in that they have already removed carbon from the atmosphere rather than promising future removals over many years. For Managed Device Lifecycle, we removed the equivalent amount of carbon released by travelling 1,522,516 kilometres in a car!

The future of carbon neutral services

PAS 2060 will be replaced by ISO 14068-1 next year, a new, globally recognised standard, further building upon PAS 2060 principles. We see this as a fantastic development as it demonstrates that the importance of quantifying, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and offsetting products and services is being recognised globally. Softcat will be working on a transition to the new ISO standard in the coming months to ensure we continue our current trajectory and certify our services as carbon neutral.