Measuring and Reducing Your Carbon Footprint in Professional Services

Carbon Measurement and Reduction for Professional Services Firms

Professional services often appears to be low-carbon at a glance: office-based teams, no heavy manufacturing, no products to ship. But most of a professional services firm’s footprint happens outside of the office environment: the goods and services you buy, the commuting your employees undertake, and the business travel you do – to name a few. That pattern holds across the sector: law firms, accountancies, consultancies, creative agencies. Emissions can add up when you consider all relevant sources (and not just office energy).

Why this matters now

Across professional services, there’s increasing pressure to take action on carbon. Clients are asking for credible data, public sector tenders require Carbon Reduction Plans, and the new generation of employees expects their company to take climate change seriously. The good news is you don’t need a sustainability team to make real progress.

Below is a practical sequence to get moving quickly. Then we dive into the hotspots you’ll likely tackle first.

A Step-By-Step Plan that works for Professional Services firms

1) Measure a full footprint

Start with a baseline year covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3 in line with the GHG Protocol. This involves collecting data across your business that you can use to estimate your carbon footprint (see the checklist below). If you don’t have data, you can always rely on estimates - for example, using your floor space to estimate your energy usage if you don’t have access to bills. You’ll then need to convert this data into emissions, using emission factors published by various bodies (e.g. DEFRA). Using a carbon accounting platform like Seedling makes the data collection and calculation process much easier.

Data checklist (quick start):

• Energy: kWh by site, fuel type, supplier.
• Travel: flight distance and cabin class, rail tickets with origin/destination, road mileage or fuel, hotel nights.
• Commuting: survey results on modes of transport, distances travelled.
• Purchasing: list of your suppliers, and what you spent with them. You might also be able to use more accurate data, like the number and type of IT devices purchased, or the weight of materials purchased.
• Waste & water: volumes by type if material.

2) Analyse hotspots

Once the data is in and emissions calculated, analyse across categories to see where the main impacts are – commuting, travel, supply chain? Focus on drilling into the top hotspots and really understand why they’re coming up – for example, within travel, is it flights or employees using their own vehicles and claiming mileage? This is essential to informing your reduction strategy.

3) Set reduction targets

Set science-based targets aligned to the 1.5°C pathway – the global goal for reducing global warming. Many services firms choose a near-term target for Scopes 1 and 2 by 2030, plus a long-term Net Zero commitment that includes deep cuts across Scope 3. You can set these targets on an absolute or intensity basis (e.g. using emissions per employee or £m revenue as a metric).

4) Build a reduction plan

Map actions to each emission hotspot, then rank these actions by impact, cost, timeline and feasibility. Try to quantify how far actions take you toward target and to visualise your pathway from baseline to interim goals.

Below, we’ll run through the most common hotspots, and cover what you might be able to do about them.

5) Assign stakeholders

Give each action an owner, budget and timeline. Put senior oversight in place so delivery doesn’t drift, and keep a single source of truth for progress.

6) Share with your team and externally

Report consistently: publish your GHG emissions, targets, and reduction plan on your website – you can link to this if any client or other stakeholder asks. Keep your team engaged – hold sessions to talk through progress and what you’ve got planned.

Bonus: Offset

Finance verified climate projects to balance what you can’t yet eliminate, focusing on high-integrity credits you can trace and report clearly. You can read more about offsetting projects (and the dos and don’ts) here.

The key hotspots and how to reduce them

Although footprints vary wildly, most firms share the same key hotspots. Use this list as your first pass to prioritise, assign owners, and track real reductions.

1) Office energy (Scope 1 and 2)

Often the fastest win. Offices are predictable environments, often with clear meters and bills, so simple choices on supply and controls drive real reductions that you can measure.

How to reduce office energy emissions:

• ‍Switch to renewable electricity energy with a high-quality provider.
• Improve efficiency: LED lighting, smart timers, HVAC optimisation.‍
• Track activity data in kWh rather than just cost so reductions show up clearly.

Read our detailed article on this here.

2) Business travel (Scope 3, Category 6)

Ultimately, you need to travel – and client service stays front and centre. But lower-carbon modes, fewer trips, and better routing cut carbon (and cost) without hurting relationships.

How to reduce business travel emissions:

• Set a travel hierarchy: default to rail for domestic and near-Europe, flights only when essential.
• Reward fewer but longer client visits rather than frequent short trips.
• Create “virtual first” meeting norms with exception rules.
• Capture actual distances, modes and flight cabin classes from booking systems or itineraries so you see the real impact, not just spend.

3) Commuting and homeworking (Scope 3, Category 7)

Hybrid patterns, active travel perks, and light-touch guidance on home setups reduce emissions - and engaging your team on this can bring them along on the journey.

How to reduce commuting and homeworking emissions:

• Incentivise low-carbon commuting: cycle schemes, public transport allowances, secure bike storage, showers.
• Adopt hybrid patterns that cut peak travel while still supporting collaboration.
• Provide home energy guidance and optional equipment upgrades.
• Use a quick employee survey to collect reliable commuting and homeworking data. It should be easy for staff to answer while still collecting enough detail on things like modes of transport and distances.

4) Purchased goods & services (Scope 3, Category 1 & 2)

This is often the largest category. IT equipment, cloud software services, contractors, and marketing services all sit here. So do things like events, hospitality and subsistence – even your employees expensing lunch for the train.

How to reduce supply chain emissions:

• IT equipment: extend lifecycles, choose lower-impact models, buy refurbished where practical, and recycle responsibly. Capture lifecycle and materials data behind your IT kit so savings are reflected in your numbers.
• Office supplies & print: default to recycled content, set print-by-badge to cut waste, digitise where possible.
• Events: prioritise local suppliers and red-meat-free menus, sustainable venues with clear energy and waste credentials, and lower-carbon travel for the team and speakers.
• Subcontracted services: include them in your supplier code of conduct and ask for their GHG inventory and targets.

Track at high-level first using spend data, then go deeper where you can identify hotspots.

Ready to get started? How Seedling can help

Whether you’re a law firm, consultancy, accountancy or agency, the pattern is the same: measure fully, find your hotspots, set targets, and execute a focused plan.

If you’d like a hand, Seedling combines simple software with one-to-one expert support across measuring, analysis, target-setting, planning, offsets and reporting