VLC has reached carbon neutrality for the third year in a row after fully offsetting the business’s activities for the financial year 2023.

The business has maintained carbon neutral status since it began measuring its carbon footprint in July 2020.

Year on year, VLC reduced its Scope 2 emissions by 16%, which are the emissions considered to be within a business’ operational control.

“Sustainability is a part of our core values, so we’re really happy to see we could reduce our Scope 2 emissions while simultaneously growing our team over the past financial year,” said VLC Executive Director (Operations & Finance) Susan Leonard.

In addition to this reduction in operational emissions, VLC also purchased carbon offsets for the Fairtrade Project: Cookstoves for Coffee Farmers, the Cleaner, Safer Water in Cambodia project and the Solar Lighting Project in Zambia from Gold Standard.

The Zambia solar lighting project is distributing 652,000 solar lights to rural homes, which will help alleviate the use of kerosene and paraffin lamps as light sources at night. 89% of rural homes within Zambia have no access to electricity.

 

Solar lights can help households without electricity and reduce emissions.

 

The Cleaner, Safer Water in Cambodia project aims to save lives and create job opportunities by manufacturing and distributing water filters to homes. By doing so, the project can help avoid some of the 10,000 deaths each year that are related to untreated water and poor sanitation. Meanwhile, by reducing a household’s need to boil water with a woodfire, the project will also reduce emissions and protect the country’s vulnerable forests.

Lastly, the Cookstoves for Coffee Farmers project hopes to equip 6000 Ethiopian households with efficient cookstoves that replace cooking over an open fire, reducing CO2 emissions by 40% and helping these farmers become more resistant to the consequences of climate change in an industry that’s highly susceptible to minute changes in temperature.

VLC’s support of these projects continues on from its support of the Nicaforest High Impact Reforestation Program and an improved cookstove project in Rwanda during the previous financial year.