For the financial year 2019-20 Shared Space Architecture has made a contribution to Greenfleet in the act of offsetting our carbon emissions which we as Australians contribute to the environment. We do this voluntarily and do this because there are projects out there in our country which aim to increase biodiversity and encourage delight in nature. Also, in our work, we generally provide advice based around an energy efficient built environment and see the need to get our house in order to continue to provide this advice honestly.

We contribute one year’s worth of offsets per Australian towards Carbon emissions per full time contributor to Shared Space.

By committing to contribute one year’s worth of Carbon Offsets per full time contributor:

• We exceed any result of any Carbon Audit for a professional office with our usage patterns, perhaps by three-fold
• It is a holistic approach based on data from the country in which we live
• It encourages us to encourage Australia as a country to reduce its carbon emissions

The projects we want to contribute towards are local, in doing so:

• It shows that a difference can be made in Australia to directly offset the emissions of Australian released Carbon
• Gives us the flexibility to put money towards projects we care deeply about (because we know them)
• We ensure local awareness of issues surrounding the Carbon Economy

This year we chose to support Greenfleet. Greenfleet is a leading not-for-profit organisation committed to protecting our climate through the restoration of forests in Australia and New Zealand; these forests are protected for up to 100 years. Originally, Greenfleet was set up to offer Australian motorists a tree-planting programme to recapture CO2 emissions and promote efficient transport technologies.

The option we chose is ‘Corporate (per Tonne)’. Our impact was derived from the percentage of all contributors multiplied by the hours of work over a year and calculated as a quota of full-time employment hours. Greenfleet’s calculations show that the average Australian emits 23 tonnes of Carbon per year and we used this figure as a benchmark for full-time work. Per full time working hour, this is 13kg per contributor.

Greenfleet’s model is flexible and it works with our flexible staffing model. This is one of many ways in which your small (or large) business can contribute to offsetting carbon emissions easily and responsibly. Please feel free to contact us for more information about how we went about this and the questions we asked in making this decision. We support the notion of acting in favour of a balanced environment and a respect towards nature.

In future years other projects may gain our support and we encourage you to let us know of any which interest you and why. There is also nothing stopping us from planting our own trees in our own community, so that we can watch them grow and be physically proud of today’s actions, tomorrow.

Click here to see our company statement.