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GP Bullhound: When internal ambitions become a successful sustainability strategy

GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm that prioritises sustainability and has meticulously put forth efforts to embed this value into their core strategy. Their approach is to not treat sustainability as a silo, but strive to weave that passion through every employee and embedded the value into every daily process. A phenomenal story to be told of a group of volunteers that turned GP Bullhound into a leading example!

Employees

Based in

Global

Industry

Investment Banking and Investment Management

Sustainable strategy

Scope 1, 2 emissions

Why carbon removal
The start of a sustainable journey

GP Bullhound’s sustainability journey started 3 years when a small group of volunteers selected for their common passion for the environment and a desire to do better were joined to establish the CSR committee. The committee, which was fortunate to have the support of management, quickly started infiltrating CSR tactics into the company’s long and short-term strategies and processes.

In the beginning, setting up a sustainable strategy across so many geographies was daunting.  Reflecting the company’s sustainable vision to achieve net zero, the committee faced challenges with hard-to-gather information, including bills in different languages and currencies. With the help of Anniken Engelsen, the ESG coordinator and the support of the committee, a thoughtful, meticulous plan was formed. For GP Bullhound, with a scale of 200 employees across 12 offices, it was clear that reducing their emissions would not be enough to achieve their goals - a dual approach of reduction and removal became the holy grail of their strategy.

"It's great that there are a lot of interesting carbon-avoiding projects that tell a nice story, but what the world needs right now is to remove what is already there. That's why we decided as a committee that we wanted to combine the removal strategy while also avoiding emissions going forward."

Anniken Engelsen, ESG co-ordinator at GP Bullhound

This realisation fired up the interest of GP Bullhound to investigate the carbon removal market and turn to GreenFeet and Klimate to kick off their carbon removal process.

About the company
GP Bullhound is a leading technology advisory and investment firm, providing transaction advice and capital to the world’s best entrepreneurs and founders. Founded in 1999 in London and Menlo Park, the firm today has 12 offices around the world.
Carbon Removal Strategy
How much do we need to remove and how?
By turning their interest to carbon removal, GP Bullhound went through the standarised decarbonisation process: calculate their emissions, strategise on how to reduce and remove the rest by thoughtfully selecting a portfolio.

The company started measuring their emissions last year with data from 2020. They completed second of calculation this year (for 2021) and are now moving forward to calculate 2022 emissions, all the while creating new reduction and removal targets.

We quickly realized that it wasn't enough to just offset our operations emissions. We needed to be strategic – accurately measure across multiple countries, look at reduction methods for a wide variety of geographic infrastructures, and create a comprehensive offsetting strategy.  But even then we were not done – we needed to align with the right partners, partners we could trust and could maximise our efforts.

Joyce Byrne, VP of US Operations at GP Bullhound

 

Step 1: Finding the emissions baseline

To calculate their emissions GP Bullhound has used our carbon accounting partner, GreenFeet. Since Klimate does not offer carbon accounting services, we have partnered up with GreenFeet to create a seamless process of decarbonisation by offering guidance from point zero to carbon removal.

Utilising GreenFeet’s intuitive technology platform, GP Bullhound has implemented a comprehensive sustainability program. In particular, GP Bullhound worked with GreenFeet to complete baseline year emissions measurement as per the Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate standard. Furthermore, as part of the GP Bullhound climate emergency strategy, they have also committed to emissions measurement and tracking using the GreenFeet sustainability emissions management platform on an ongoing basis. The GreenFeet platform has also provided GP Bullhound with guidance around goal setting, offsetting, internal communications as well as GHG emissions reporting.

In short, the GreenFeet platform has allowed GP Bullhound to streamline their carbon emission data collection, measurement and interpretation from their global organisation such that the entire process has been very efficient and cost-effective.

Step 2: Selecting removal target and portfolio

GP Bullhound removed 80 tonnes of carbon using four different methods of carbon removal. Most of the carbon removal comes from nature-based solutions (93.89%), while hybrid methods deliver 6.00%. The remaining 0.11% comes from technological solutions.

Even though the majority of emissions are removed using nature-based solutions, the majority of the funds allocated are invested in permanent removal. Not all carbon removal options cost the same. 

About the company 
GreenFeet is an easy-to-use and cost-effective software platform that helps organisations put in place a comprehensive sustainability program. Everything from calculating your corporate carbon footprint, to goal setting, reduction initiatives, offsetting and reporting.

GreenFeet's mission is to help organisations of all sizes to reduce their emissions, by giving companies easy to configure, accurate visibility into their carbon footprint, along with a viable range of options as to how to go about reducing their GHG output

“GP Bullhound was a wonderful partner to Green Feet, meticulously gathering information on their local operations, including employee commuting and travel, to create a comprehensive calculation.  Collaborations between organisations like GreenFeet and Klimate are really valuable for customers like GP Bullhound. Klimate provides transparent, high-quality, verified carbon removals in an easy-to-understand and consumable way, which are important for organisations intending to utilise carbon removals as part of a comprehensive sustainability programme. Similarly, GreenFeet provides an easy-to-use and understanding sustainability platform. Together GreenFeet and Klimate provide everything most organisations will need as part of their sustainability journey.”

Lisa Mckelvey, co-founder at Green Feet

Moving forward
Staying true to your mission
GP Bullhound continues to strive for sustainability and has committed to constantly reevaluate goals, improve requirements and accelerate their growth in a responsible way.

“There is a balance we have to strike as a growing company. As we open new offices and hire more employees, we have to remain vigilant in our sustainability actions. At the end of the day, we don't just treat offsets as an annual expense - we strive to keep a balance and make reduction an essential focus.” 

Joyce Byrne, VP of US Operations at GP Bullhound

 

Book a demo

Talk to a carbon removal strategist

Finding the right way to remove your CO₂ emissions can seem overwhelming. Luckily, we are always here to help. You can book a meeting to walk through how our solution might fit your needs, or simply send us a message.

Book a demo

Talk to a carbon removal strategist

Finding the right way to remove your CO2 emissions can seem overwhelming. Luckily, we are always here to help. You can book a meeting to walk through how our solution might fit your needs, or simply send us a message.