Environmental 
sustainability report
2023

Our commitment to reducing our environmental impact

Download 2023 report

Reducing our environmental impact

Netcall is committed to reducing its environmental impact as well as enhancing its environmental policy and environmental management systems to establish and further measure improvements.

The Group’s long-term growth is underpinned by a set of value-based operating principles. These have regularly been reviewed and adapted as Netcall has developed. They centre on customer focus, innovation, integrity, quality and teamwork.

The culture of Netcall is characterised by these values. They are communicated widely including within the competency framework, which sets out how we want our colleagues to work within Netcall, and promoted throughout the organisation by managers in their daily work.

Our commitment

Netcall is continuing its journey to measure and improve its impact on the environment. The business is committed to working towards “carbon-neutral” status — with an ambition to be carbon-neutral by the end of 2026.

During the financial year, Netcall has measured and is reporting its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. These have increased by 7.5% to 34.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent ‘tCO2e’ (FY22: 32 tCO2e) as more employees have utilised offices since pandemic restrictions lifted.

The carbon intensity of Netcall’s Poole office electricity supply has also increased. This is due to the electricity supplier, which has changed their mix of fuel for generation.

Total Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions have reduced by 48.3% (32.2 tCO2e) compared to the 2020 Baseline (FY20: 66.6 tCO2e).

For the first time, Netcall is reporting on a subset of Scope 3 emissions — business travel. Emissions for business travel and accommodation were 78.5 tCO2e with employee commuting responsible for 12.0 tCO2e.

The Group are reporting on this subset voluntarily, evidencing the drive and commitment to reduce our environmental impact.

Scope 1

Covers direct emissions from owned or controlled sources.

Scope 2

Covers indirect emissions from the generation of purchased electricity, steam, heating and cooling consumed by a reporting company.

Scope 3

Now reporting Scope 3 emissions which cover indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain.

Getting to carbon-neutral

Our strategy includes reducing and offsetting our Scope 1 and 2 emissions to achieve net zero this year – and our Scope 3 emissions by 2026 –
and then removing more carbon than we emit.

1

Procurement

Purchase green energy, sustainable water and sustainable hardware.

2

Operations

Move as much as possible to the cloud to exploit energy at scale.

3

Retirement

Ensure e-waste management.

Carbon offsetting

Netcall has purchased carbon offsets for Scope 1, Scope 2 and a subset of Scope 3 emissions from Highland Carbon. Highland Carbon help companies to neutralise their carbon footprint and they have won Best UK Wide Carbon Credit Supplier 2021, 2022 & 2023 in the Scottish Enterprise Awards.

Supplying more than 60 companies in the voluntary carbon market, their Loch Ness Afforestation Project provides a unique opportunity for non-heavy industry businesses to be good company citizens.

Their two-phase native woodland restoration project, just to the south of Loch Ness and near the Great Glen in Scotland, will see the planting 100,000 trees like the Caledonian Scots pine, sessile oak, hazel, downy birch, rowan, eared willow and quaking aspen.

As well as the Loch Ness Afforestation project, Netcall has supported the Corriegarth project, a creation of new native woodland over 63.02 hectares as an expansion of existing ancient native woodlands in Inverness-shire.

Putting sustainability into practice

During the year, Netcall populated and utilised the Environmental Management System (EMS) built on the Liberty Create low-code platform with partner DI Blue.

The implementation of the EMS supports management of key actions and improvements for environmental performance.

The EMS app is available to Netcall customers through the AppShare. The app enables organisations to implement the ISO 14001:2015 standard.

Netcall’s strategy starts with its own operations, but it expands beyond this by ensuring the changes implemented flow into the Group’s product strategies. This therefore also benefits the organisations and communities in which it operates.

In general, digital transformation increases automation and improves stakeholder engagement and communications. It makes processes and interactions more efficient and supports reduction of carbon emissions for our customers and their ecosystems.

Netcall customers benefit from solutions:

  • that reduce resource requirements and associated office and transportation costs, such as home working contact centre agents;
  • such as Patient Hub, which reduces carbon emissions with electronic communications — replacing printed and posted materials, directly improving NHS Trust emissions to help them meet their net zero promises;
  • using technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), automatic speech recognition (ASR), optical character recognition (OCR), and computer vision to improve efficiency and lower the carbon intensity of operations; and,
  • that are cloud-based, leveraging large-scale efficiency innovations.

Netcall customers improve their carbon footprint with Liberty platform

Boosting patient experience and hospital productivity while reducing carbon footprint

92% of the Trust’s specialities now use Patient Hub, Netcall’s digital patient engagement portal, which vastly reduces manual processing by hospital staff by 88%. Letters sent in the post are replaced by a portal enabling patients to self serve, causing a giant reduction in paper use and postage, which presents savings upwards of £2million.

Patent Hub delivers significant cost savings and utilisation improvements for NHS Trusts while at the same time providing sustainability benefits reduction in carbon footprint for hospitals and patients.

A green initiative built in low-code

UK Power Networks utilise Liberty Create, Netcall’s low-code platform, and other types of Netcall intelligent automation to achieve efficiency gains and integrate legacy systems.

Their Smart Connect application is just one example. It supports installers and customers in applying to connect one (or multiple) new low-carbon technologies. It is a digital automated system which reduces processing times, sends automatic referrals, has tracking and reporting capabilities and makes it easier for their customers to make an environmentally friendly choice.

Transformed online experience benefits citizens, bottom line and environment

The Tewkesbury Transformation Team have used Liberty Create, Netcall’s low-code platform, to have a profoundly positive impact on service delivery at the council.

Using low-code, they have digitised multiple resident services offering fantastic online experiences and saving a huge amount of staff time. Significantly reducing the use of paper and process is having a big impact on their carbon footprint and also delivering financial savings.

Councils, hospitals and organisations across the country are using Netcall products to transform their services and reduce their impact on the environment in the same way as the organisations highlighted here.

For Netcall customers, our solutions offer key methods to reduce their energy use.

These include reduced resource requirements and associated office and transportation costs of enabling remote working.

The migration of Netcall customer workloads from on-site solutions to the cloud will reduce CO2 emissions and help customers meet their net zero targets.

Cloud operators use their massive scale for adopting large-scale efficiency innovations.

In 2014, the US Natural Resources Defense Council’s report on data centre efficiency stated that average server utilisation remained static at 12% to 18% between 2006 and 2012, while hyperscalers could achieve 40% to 70%. Higher utilisation is more efficient.

Our preferred cloud provider, uses 100% renewable energy in Europe.

Ahead of the curve

SBTi submission

The SBTI defines and promotes best practice in science-based target setting. They drive ambitious climate action in the private sector by enabling organisations to set emissions reduction targets.

Netcall’s submission to the Science Based Target Initiate has been successfully validated. This independent validation provides a clear path to reduce emissions to net zero. Netcall are one of only 18 software businesses in the UK to have set targets with the SBTi.

Voluntary reporting on Scope 3 emissions

For the first time, Netcall is voluntarily reporting on a subset of Scope 3 emissions; business travel. Emissions for business travel and accommodation were 78.5 tCO2e. Employee commuting was responsible for 12.0 tCO2e.

Netcall has decided to offset business travel emissions of Scope 3 by purchasing carbon credits from Highland Carbon.

Ecovadis medal

Ecovadis provides supply chain risk management solutions. They have awarded Netcall a bronze medal in recognition of the Group’s sustainability achievements.

This reflects the quality of Netcall’s sustainability management system and means that Netcall is in the top 50% of all companies in all industries.

Reducing Scope 3 emissions

We are reducing our Scope 3 emissions to net zero by 2026.

While we don’t have direct control over the majority of emissions in the Scope 3 category, they represent the bulk of our emissions. We are addressing them in our carbon-neutral commitment by the following methods:

  • Utilising an environmental management system
  • Improving supplier emissions data tracking and reporting
  • Further improving energy efficiency of devices and software
  • In our solutions, we are continuing to reduce carbon emissions and environmental impact throughout our solutions’ lifecycles.

Greenhouse gas emissions

Baseline: Financial year ending 30th June 2020

Additional details relating to the baseline emissions calculations: No prior Scope 3 emissions reporting.

Baseline year emissions:

Financial year ending 30th June 2023

Additional details relating to the baseline emissions calculations: No prior Scope 3 emissions reporting.

2023 financial year emissions:

The carbon emissions reduction achieved by these schemes equates to 34.6 tCO2e, a 52%ge reduction against the 2020 baseline and the measures will be in effect when performing the contract.

Netcall logo - white

“Having achieved our target of reducing our Scope 1 and 2 emissions to net zero by 2022, ahead of our 2026 target, our journey to measure and improve our impact on the environment continues. Validation by the SBTi, reporting on a subset of Scope 3 emissions voluntarily as well as offsetting carbon created by employee business travel – this moves beyond what is required of our organisation, which demonstrates our commitment to reducing our environmental impact.“

Henrik Bang

CEO, Netcall

What’s next?

By 2026, we will reduce and offset our Scope 3 emissions to net zero. In advance of the commitment to become net zero by 2026, Netcall are offsetting travel emissions in the current financial year 2023-24.

We will continue to help our suppliers, customers and partners reduce their carbon footprints through our learnings and with the power of intelligent automation and customer engagement.

Scope 1 emissions

Scope 1 includes emissions resulting directly from Netcall’s activity, such as fuel used in vehicles or gas burnt in boilers to heat facilities.

  • In financial year 21, Netcall CO2e emissions for the use of gas to heat office buildings was 38.1 tonnes.
  • In financial year 23, Netcall CO2e emissions for the use of gas to heat office buildings was 32.5 tonnes.
  • This is a reduction of 5.6 tonnes of CO2e, 15%.

Scope 2 emissions

Scope 2 includes indirect emissions primarily from purchased electricity. Energy efficiency and procurement of green power are key to reduce Scope 2 emissions.

  • In financial year 21, Netcall CO2e emissions for the use of electricity in office buildings was 7.6 tonnes.
  • In financial year 23, Netcall CO2e emissions for the use of electricity in office buildings was 2.0 tonnes.
  • This is a reduction of 5.6 tonnes of CO2e, 74%.

Scope 3 emissions

Scope 3 includes all indirect emissions that occur across Netcall’s value chain, both downstream and upstream.

For the first time, Netcall is reporting on a subset of Scope 3 emissions for business travel and accommodation at 78.5 tCO2e, with employee commuting responsible for 12.0 tCO2e.

These sources are extensive and includes the full lifecycle of products, including the electricity that clients consume when using a Netcall solution.

Whilst reporting of Scope 3 emissions is optional, it provides an opportunity to be innovative in greenhouse gas management.

Netcall will focus on accounting for and reporting those activities that are relevant to our business and goals, and for which we have reliable information. In advance of mandatory reporting requirements, Netcall is capturing and analysing data for the following Scope 3 categories:

  • Business travel
  • Employee commuting
  • Waste generated in operations
  • Upstream transportation and distribution
  • Downstream transportation and distribution

Prefer to download this report?

If you would prefer to view our Environmental Sustainability Report 2023 in PDF, please click below.

Download 2023 report

Supporting our customers with sustainability

Taking the lead in sustainability, many large organisations are already actively looking for ways to face the challenge of climate change head on. Netcall’s customers, like them, are seeking new and innovative approaches to save energy and pivot to more climate-friendly ways of working.

Supporting our customers 2022 Report

You might also be interested in…

Utilities, Bills and Empathy: How CX Tech can Help

Utilities, Bills and Empathy: How CX Tech can Help

Delivering good customer service in the utilities sector has become more challenging as many people struggle with the cost of living. But, technology can help brands to become more empathetic and improve customer experience.