Amsterdam – 18 February 2021 – WeTransfer the company that makes tools to move ideas, today announces that it has received climate neutral certification, following its pledge to reduce emissions by 30% by 2025 and after becoming one of the few global tech companies to achieve B Corp status.
The work was undertaken in partnership with two leading firms experienced in providing management information on sustainability, Climate Neutral Group and Sustainalize. Having measured WeTransfer’s carbon emissions, they carried out a detailed audit analysing the calculations and effectiveness of WeTransfer’s carbon reduction strategy, auditing the source and scale of emissions.
In achieving the status of a climate neutral service, it became clear that the process of addressing environmental impact is particularly complex for technology firms with cloud products at their core. As such, WeTransfer is calling for cloud providers to help them provide greater transparency by linking the energy consumption of data centers to the usage of individual customers more clearly and sharing the resulting energy consumption breakdowns.
WeTransfer wants to collaborate with cloud providers in finding technical solutions that address this opportunity to reach a point where there is more transparency, and is offering to convene other fast-growth technology firms which face similar challenges to support this process.
Commenting, WeTransfer CEO Gordon Willoughby said:
“Becoming climate neutral has been one of our core commitments, so this is a hugely important milestone for WeTransfer after our certification as a B Corp last year. Not only does this make good sense, it’s what our customers are demanding, and rightly so. As a responsible, values-driven business, our ultimate goal is to go even further and become a climate-positive company, actively removing carbon from the atmosphere. This is a massive ambition and we can’t do it alone.
“If we’re to encourage the next wave of innovation by cloud-enabled businesses, the journey towards becoming a greener technology business and achieving net zero as a base line should be far more straightforward.
“We want to see greater transparency from the whole technology supply chain, but also more collaboration between the major global businesses in our industry if we’re to stand a chanceof addressing the evident cloud blindspot and giving internet users the clarity they are clamouring for”.
WeTransfer is applying Offset Principles to create strict criteria for the projects that it supports: that these reflect WeTransfer’s values and contribute towards UN Sustainable Development Goals by putting local communities first; providing quantifiable and transparent data and making a long-term impact over a number of years. The projects the firm supports meet Gold Standard and Verified Carbon Standard certifications, and include building capacity for biogas in Uganda and wind energy in countries including India.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
1. WeTransfer’s set of beautifully obvious tools to keep ideas moving make creativity easier for everyone. Designed for today’s teams, they are built for – and inspired by – the creative process. As WeTransfer continues to evolve, creativity remains at the heart of everything it does, inspiring the company’s mission to be behind every great idea.
2. Climate Neutral Certification has been externally audited and will continue to be monitored by a third party to ensure consistent commitment. As part of it, emissions and resources assessed cover three areas of protection: human health, natural environment, and natural resource use. Beyond carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint, other emissions were taken into consideration including fossil depletion, freshwater ecotoxicity, human toxicity, ionising radiation, ozone depletion, water depletion, among many others.
Further information on the carbon offset projects supported by WeTransfer can be found here: https://www.climateneutralgroup.com/en/climate-projects/biogas-in-uganda/ and https://www.climateneutralgroup.com/en/climate-projects/wind-farm-in-india/
3. WeTransfer received certification as a B Corp in June 2020, at the same time as announcing a series of long-term ambitions on the firm’s relationship with its employees, the wider community and reducing its environmental impact: https://ideas.bywetransfer.com/story/we-are-a-bcorp
4. WeTransfer’s B Corp Impact Report, Overall B Impact Score and Impact Area Scores can be found here: https://bcorporation.net/directory/we-transfer.com
5. Founded in 2010, Sustainalize works with companies to find the right answers to sustainability challenges, helping them understand their impact, develop strategies and manage results on the basis of reliable information - https://sustainalize.com/
Climate Neutral Group develops tools and solutions to help organisations reduce their impact on the climate and support reaching Net Zero by 2020, focused on achieving credible and transparent results - https://www.climateneutralgroup.com/en/