The climate emergency has arrived and is accelerating rapidly. The adverse effects of climate change are more severe than expected with extreme weather frequency impacting our planet.

2020 was one of the hottest years on record and high temperatures exceeded 38 degrees Celsius within the Arctic circle, furthermore, an Atlantic hurricane season resulted in more than $46 billion of damage and floods in South Asia displaced more than 12 million people.

The world's response was the Paris Agreement in 2015, adopted by 196 countries, its aim is to limit global warming to below 2 and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

In 2019, the UK Parliament passed legislation to reduce net emissions of greenhouse gases by 100% relative to 1990 levels by 2050. Doing so would make the UK a 'net-zero' emitter.

Closer to home, we know that buildings and their construction together account for 39% of energy-related CO2 emissions annually.

At Space, we are very aware of our impact on climate change both directly and indirectly.

Our clients share our commitment to reducing carbon in construction and operation. We have developed tools and metrics to reduce embedded and operational carbon through design.

However, as well as supporting our clients' aspirations, we want to be confident that we are minimising our carbon use as a business.

In 2021 we launched Zero23, our commitment to becoming a zero-carbon business by 2023. We started our journey by converting all lighting at Spaceworks to LED, installing VRF heating and cooling and committing to using electric vehicles over time.

As we emerge from lockdown, we are rethinking how we work, providing greater flexibility that will reduce our need to travel.

We are at the start of our journey to Net Zero and know there is hard work ahead to achieve our goal but we are confident and motivated by the challenge.