Carbon emissions
As part of our purpose to provide clean energy for a clean planet we are also playing our part as a company to reduce carbon emission intensity from our own operations.
At Ceres we enable the decarbonisation of multiple markets by developing highly differentiated technology that scales through global partnerships. As a licensing business, we continually innovate and release new versions of our technology, requiring highly talented engineers, technicians, chemists, and material scientists. This world leading R&D, along with commercial, administrative and finance functions, occurs in Horsham, UK. We also operate our Redhill site: a small pilot production plant moving from 3MW to 5MW of capacity that allows us to produce demonstration and test products and develop manufacturing automation techniques for our stacks. In 2023 Ceres has opened two more facilities: a Cleantech Test Centre in Nuneaton, UK and an office in Brighton, UK. Neither were included in the presented emissions data, but both will be accounted for in the future.
While our technology will lead to huge carbon abatement and carbon savings, we seek to understand our own direct and indirect emissions relative to our global positive impact from our two sites in the UK. Since 2020 we have been working with a third party, Ricardo, to report against SECR requirements and to go above and beyond to develop a more detailed understanding of our Scope 3 emissions whilst ensuring integrity of our data and the analysis process.
For Ceres’ 2022 SECR report, a more detailed characterisation of emissions factors by spend type has superseded the earlier method of spend based estimation. Year-on-year changes in carbon emissions are therefore not directly comparable, with spend increasing by 14% on capital goods and 17% on goods and services from 2021 to 2022. This represents an important step in improving our methods of data collection and Ceres will continue to refine emissions analysis using the best available tools in future reports.
Ceres is at the beginning of evaluating its carbon emissions pathway in line with Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) guidance to achieving net zero emissions before 2050. As a growth company, Ceres expects that its short-term emissions will increase as it succeeds in its mission to embed its technology with global partners. Nonetheless, we intend to establish a Science Based Target (SBT) pathway to reduce emissions intensity whilst our absolute emissions increase in the short-term. We aim to ensure our emissions are in line with 1.5°C and SBTi guidelines leading to cumulative benefits over time.
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