Xero
Founded in 2006 in New Zealand, Xero is one of the fastest growing software as a service (SaaS) companies globally. We lead the New Zealand, Australian, and United Kingdom cloud accounting markets, employing a world-class team of more than 3,000 people. In 2020, Xero was recognised by IDC MarketScape as a leader in its worldwide SaaS and cloud-enabled small business finance and accounting applications vendor assessment.
Xero has started to change the game for small businesses. Our cloud-based accounting software connects people with the right numbers anytime, anywhere, on any device. For accountants and bookkeepers, Xero helps build a trusted relationship with small business clients through online collaboration.
“Our achievement of carbon neutral certification demonstrates to our customers that we are committed to minimising our impact on the environment now, and into the future.”
Type of certification
Organisation
How long have you been certified carbon neutral?
Since February 2021.
Why did you choose to go carbon neutral?
Xero takes sustainability seriously and our achievement of carbon neutral certification demonstrates to our customers that we are committed to minimising our impact on the environment now, and into the future.
What are the anticipated benefits of your carbon neutral certification?
At Xero, we’re committed to building a fast-growing but sustainable business. We see the Climate Active certification delivering benefits across multiple areas including:
- Demonstrating our commitment to sustainability to our customers and staff, who are increasingly more concerned about the environmental impacts of our business operations and want to do business or work with a company that cares about the planet.
- Improving staff engagement through recycling campaigns and promoting the use of active and public transport to commute to work.
- Energy bill savings across the business, through energy efficiency measures within our offices.
- Protecting indigenous forests and endangered species, and generating clean energy through the offsets projects we support.
What offset projects do you support?
A biomass based cogeneration project in India, a peatland restoration and conservation project in Indonesia, and wind power project in India.
Why did you choose these projects?
We aim to support projects that restore indigenous forests that soak up carbon dioxide directly from the air and protect endangered species, and generate clean energy with the overall aim of reducing future carbon emissions.
We have chosen to staple additional offsets from a project close to our hearts in our headquartered country of New Zealand that preserves native forest and protects the habitat of endangered flora and fauna.
Read more about the projects and how we're making a difference in our blog.
How can customers support you?
We want to deepen our relationships with organisations and suppliers that acknowledge and take action towards climate change to have a positive environmental impact.
Customers can help by sharing the story of our efforts and progress to their networks and value chains. Furthermore, the community can help by holding competitors accountable for their action on climate change to help drive positive change across our industry.
What else are you doing to reduce emissions?
We are actively developing Xero’s social and environmental initiatives that will reduce our carbon footprint. Examples of some initiatives that will contribute to these emissions reductions include:
- purchasing carbon neutral electricity across a number of our offices
- reducing waste production and increasing recycling rates
- ensuring access to video conference technology is straight forward for our employees so that its use becomes part of our normal way of working
- enhancing procurement processes to consider climate impacts in purchasing.
What has been the impact of your action?
Through the purchase of carbon neutral electricity from Powershop for our Melbourne and Sydney offices, we have already avoided ~560 tCO2-e compared with using typical electricity products.
What advice would you give to a business considering certification?
Data collection is key so start building your processes early so that you can reduce your reliance on estimates.