Tackling greenhouse gas emissions has become an urgent challenge. At discoverIE, we contribute to the transition to a low carbon economy both through our products helping others to reduce their emissions and through our operations by reducing our own.
We have set a science-based target to achieve net zero emissions in our operations (Scope 1 & 2) by 2030 and within our value chain (Scope 3) by 2040, and have published our transition plan to achieve the first phase of this goal – net zero emissions for Scope 1 & 2 by 2030.
Net zero for Scope 1 & 2
Our net-zero plan for Scope 1 & 2 focuses primarily on addressing four of the Group's largest emissions sources: electricity, natural gas, company cars and refrigerants, and aims to achieve an absolute reduction of 65% by 2025 against the 2021 baseline. In CY2025, we reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions for continuing operations in absolute terms by 68%, primarily driven by more sites switching to renewable energy sources and reduced electricity consumption.
Our near-term goal is to reduce absolute Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 90% by the end of 2030 from a 2021 base year. The remaining emissions that cannot be removed will be neutralised through investing in carbon removal projects. This will ensure we remain focused on reducing emissions as much as possible before resorting to carbon offsets. We also commit to increasing active annual sourcing of renewable electricity from 58% in 2021 to 100% by 2030.
Acquisitions
Given our acquisitive nature, we take a proactive approach by incorporating emission-related questions into the due diligence process so emission sources can be identified early and plans can be drawn up in advance. This helps to shorten the time required to achieve net zero emissions for acquired businesses, which form a significant part of our growth strategy.
Net zero for Scope 3
Our Scope 3 emissions of approximately 2.5m tCO₂e in 2025 was over 900 times greater than our combined Scope 1 & 2 emissions, and made up of many more sources of emissions. In FY2026 year we completed our third comprehensive Groupwide exercise to capture data on all Scope 3 emissions. The exercise sought to cover the entire Group (including new acquisitions), and included as many of the Scope 3 subcategories defined by the GHG Protocol as possible.
Our CY2025 Scope 3 emissions were 1% higher than those identified last year, at 2,671,103 tCO2e (CY2024: 2,642,821 tCO2e), comprising over 99% of the Group’s total emissions across all of Scope 1, 2 and 3. This increase was driven by more extensive data collection for our downstream transportation (category 3:9) calculation. We recognise the limitations in our data, and we will continue to enhance accuracy and completeness in future years.
While we can work with our suppliers to reduce emissions or seek alternatives, our ability to directly effect reductions is limited. However, the Group will benefit from decarbonisation actions already taking place amongst other industries, such as metallurgy and freight, and the expected greening of national electricity grids.
We do not intend to rely solely on the actions of others to achieve reductions. We are exploring ways to support decarbonisation which our businesses can take:
- Designing our products for improved efficiency and reduced power consumption.
- Engineering to reduce material usage (whilst not compromising safety), minimising waste and improving end-of-life recyclability of our products.
- Using lower-emissions freight methods, such as switching from air freight (currently responsible for almost 30% of our upstream and downstream transport emissions) to sea freight (where emissions are up to 70 times less than air freight for the same cargo delivered), and encouraging our customers and suppliers to do the same.
- Reducing business travel, particularly air travel, and encouraging employees to adopt low carbon commuting habits, e.g. through cycle to work and EV lease schemes.
- Engaging with customers to explore the potential of lower carbon or recycled materials in our products.
- Encouraging suppliers to track and take action on their emissions, to reduce emissions in our supply chain.
There were two key elements to the exercise in our third year:
- To enhance the availability and accuracy of emissions drivers and reduce our reliance on spend-based data.
- To sense-check and analyse trend data over the three years of data now available.
A summary of key findings is as follows:
- Our CY2025 Scope 3 emissions were 1% higher than those identified last year, at 2,671,103 tCO2e
(CY2024: 2,642,821 tCO2e), comprising over 99% of the Group’s total emissions across all of Scope 1, 2 and 3. This increase was driven by more extensive data collection for our downstream transportation (category 3:9) calculation. We recognise the limitations in our data, and we will continue to enhance accuracy and completeness in future years. - The largest category of Scope 3 emissions was from emissions in use (category 3:11), with that category alone representing over 87% of Scope 3 emissions.
- The second largest source of Scope 3 emissions was purchased goods and services (category 3:1), which comprised 7% of total Scope 3 emissions.
- The third and fourth largest sources were downstream (category 3:9) and upstream (category 3:4) transportation, representing 4% and 1% of our Scope 3 emissions, respectively.
Find out more about our latest progress in Our Performance and how we manage the climate-related risks and opportunities in our latest Net-Zero Report.