services and costs

Introduction

This section provides a step-by-step overview of the usual process that we go through when working with a new partner organisation.

Although there is some complexity, the whole process typically only takes around 2-4 weeks to complete, during which time we will probably need to have two or three meetings.

At the end of the process, you will have your full emissions audit, environmental strategy document and carbon certification.

This section is terribly dry and boring to read, but you might find it helpful.

1 : First contact

The whole process starts when you first reach out to us via the contact form. From there we will be able to schedule a convenient time to get together on the phone.

The first conversation is usually quite general and exploratory. We are here to answer some of those early questions and chat generally about the various options.

Please don’t feel you need to have done any research before getting in touch, we are more than happy to walk you through the basics.

By the end of that call, presuming that we both feel that this is an avenue worth pursuing.

2 : Getting your heads around it

The central pillar of any strategy is the Environmental Strategy Report. This extensive document is typically produced at the outset and is updated every year alongside your regular accounting reports. It contains …

• A statement of your overall Environmental Strategy, in which you set out your long term ambitions for emission reductions and other related issues.

• A detailed report of your present and past emissions.

• Discussions about any Positive Actions undertaken in the previous period or planned for the upcoming year.

• A review of any carbon certification (such as Carbon Neutral) that you wish to achieve and maintain.

At this point we will provide you with a sample Environmental Strategy Report, which will contain dummy data for a company of your type and size.

This is usually a big moment, the point at which you really start to understand what the process involves. You can can share the document amongst colleagues. Hopefully you will be able to quickly and easily understand whether or not your organisation is ready to start taking action.

3 : Getting people on board

At this point, you will most likely want to on-board anyone in your organisation who you think should be party to the decision on whether or not to proceed. This may include any or all of the people who would be taking responsibility for the following tasks …

• Decision-making on overall environmental strategy (corporate)

• Decision-making on the coordination with commercial strategy (marketing)

• Decision-making on detailed strategy composition

• Providing access to reasonably detailed accounts information

• Implementation of positive actions

In a smaller organisation these tasks may well be covered by one person. In a larger organisation they may be spread across a member of the board, a senior marketing person, a member of the finance team and an additional project coordinator.

4 : Meeting 1 : Discussing strategy and commissioning a report

The next critical step in the process is a meeting between any or all of the interested members of staff in your organisation and one of our senior environmental experts.

The purposes of this meeting are …

• To run through any questions that you may have.

• To clarify your primary objectives and discuss how they can best be achieved. This discussion is usually centred on your targets for emissions reductions and options for carbon certification.

• To gain an understanding of the various costs and benefits.

• To reach the point where you can decide whether or not you would like to proceed.

• By this point we will be able to provide you with costs for the creation of a full Environmental Strategy Report, so you should hopefully be able to commission that work to start.

It is important to realise that, to this point you have incurred no costs from us and should have only incurred a small overhead on your side.

5 : Preparation of your first Environmental Strategy Report

Once you have given us the green light, we will get to work preparing the first edition of your Environmental Strategy Report. Depending on how far you are through your financial year, this report may be for the previous, present or subsequent year.

Although these reports are comprehensive, they are not necessarily expensive to produce. The sample report that we provided to you earlier should be most of the way there, we simply need to update your specific ambitions and populate it with real data.

The largest task is the detailed assessment of your emissions. For this we will need access to some general accounting information for the previous year, as well as detailed breakdown of all your expenditures. We will send you a form which requests this information in an orderly fashion. We will most likely need to liaise with a member of your accounts team and may ask them to do some work in segmenting expenditures into sub-categories beyond your usual financial reporting. For example, we may request that staff expenses are broken down into transport, food and entertainment. We may also need specific information from utility bills. This should not involve a great deal of work, but it is critical to the process, so we do need someone at your end who is ready and willing to help out.

It usually takes just one or two weeks to prepare a first draft of the report, ready for your inspection.

At this point, having now calculated your emissions, we will also be in a position to quantify the costs of any carbon certification that you may want to achieve (Carbon Aware, Carbon Neutral or Carbon Free). These costs are limited to the quantity of the carbon credits that you need to buy in order to offset your relevant emissions (in other words, how many trees we need to plant for you).

6 : Meeting 2 : Polishing the report and commissioning certification

By this point we are probably 2-4 weeks into the process and it is time for the second meeting, usually attended by the same people as the first meeting. The main agenda items are …

• To review the Environmental Strategy Report in detail, make corrections, tune ambitions and adjust positive actions.

• To review the options and costs for carbon certification, optionally giving the go-ahead to purchase the required carbon credits.

• To discuss any new procedures that you may need to implement in order to comply with carbon certification.

7.1 : Environmental Strategy Report

Within a very short time of the second meeting, we should be able to deliver the finalised Environmental Strategy Report. If you have further amendments, then we can continue to improve it until you are happy, but usually this doesn’t take long.

Once the report is complete, we send you an invoice for the work that we have done. The price guide for the production of an Environmental Strategy Report is around GBP 1000 per GBP million gross profit, with a lower limit of GBP 3000 (USD 1200 per USD million gross profit, with a lower limit of USD 3600).

7.2 : Carbon certification

If you have additionally chosen to purchase carbon credits in order to achieve a level of carbon certification, then we will also send you an invoice for the first year of tree-planting activities.

Guide prices for this are more difficult to provide. If you are not aiming for carbon certification, then clearly there will be no costs. If you are, then a range of GBP 200-800 (USD 240-960) per employee would cover most types of organisation. In return you will receive …

• A receipt showing your payment commitment and our commitment to plant the requisite number of tropical trees.

• A link to a document outlining how you might like to promote your certification on your paperwork, website and marketing materials. As always, we are also available to offer advice on the phone.

• A link to a web location from where you can download any certification imagery that you may need.

If you have chosen Carbon Aware or Carbon Free certification, then we are on hand to offer advice on how to best implement carbon surcharges on your invoices (invisible/visible, compulsory/optional, opt-out/opt-in) and how to order the appropriate carbon offsets from us (which can either be done on a job-by-job basis or retrospectively at the end of an appropriate accounting period). There are no additional charges for these services.

8 : Mid-term reviews

We usually like to reach out during the middle of a reporting period, mainly to check how you are getting on with implementing any Positive Actions. This is not normally a formal review, just a chat. If you would prefer that we proactively monitor your progress, then there may be a charge.

We are also available for general chats and to provide advice at any time, should you need us, without charge.

If you want to undertake a significant review of your carbon strategy during the middle of a reporting period, then we are more than happy to join you for meetings, although it may be necessary to levy modest additional charges.

9 : Renewals

At the end of your reporting period, we need to more or less repeat the sequence of meetings listed above and undertake the following work …

• Calculate your emissions for the period.

• Report on your Positive Actions for the period.

• Discuss and define new Positive Actions for the next period.

• Assess whether carbon certification requirements have been met.

• Calculate the required carbon offsets for the next period of certification.

• Issue the updated Environmental Strategy Report.

• Confirm your ongoing carbon certification.

For these subsequent years, the costs are usually much lower than in the first year …

• For redoing the calculations and regenerating the report, we usually charge around 50% of the initial fee. However, this number may rise if there are major changes to the strategy or other onerous tasks which take us a long time.

• For carbon offsets, you will typically only need to purchase around 35% compared with the first year. The trees we plant for you will continue to grow and sequester carbon, so we only need to add a top-up for natural wastage (droughts, pests and wood poachers), plus any additional to cover expansion of your business.

10 : Project visits

If you are lucky enough to be able to travel to Africa, then we can arrange for you to visit one of our carbon sequestering projects, notably the tree-planting projects of Karatu, where you can meet our gardeners and pop for tea with some of our lovely local farmers. You will find it an utterly enchanting experience.

Excitingly, these projects are close to some of the greatest natural landscapes on the continent, notably the Ngorongoro and Serengeti areas of Tanzania, so most of our visitors tend to do so as part of a safari. Since squestr actually originated from the world of safari, we are also in a great position to help you out with travel arrangements!

We can even arrange trips for large groups, if you would like to put on an incentive trip for staff or treat your customers (and offset the trip at the same time). We have catered for groups of up to 600 people out on safari.

11 : Termination

You are free to terminate our relationship at any point. The only contractural obligation is that you remain obliged to pay us for any work which you have commissioned and we have delivered. Other than that, the only things that tie us together are our high levels of service and the benefits that your organisations gains from environmental reporting.

Next section

Projects

Learn about the concept of carbon offsetting and visit our projects in tropical Africa.