Sustainability Journey

Sustainability is at the heart of everything we do at Future Leap. Here, we’d like to share the steps we are taking to ensure we are progressing with our mission.

Net Zero Commitments

The Future Leap Network, Future Leap Hubs and The Festival of Sustainable Business teams have made commitments to be carbon neutral in their operations and to consider sustainability in every aspect of their service delivery.

Together, we can work towards Net Zero. Here is how we are reducing our environmental impact.

Strategic Sustainability

Carbon Impact Summary 2024

At Future Leap we are committed to ensuring our operations are as low carbon as possible and we have developed a robust plan to continually improve our performance. We recognise the challenges, both financial and practical, in pursuing net zero emissions and our duty to be honest and transparent about our progress. Alongside implementing strategies to reduce our emissions in line with net zero targets, we will be continuing to choose to offset our Scope 1 and 2 emissions to further mitigate our impact throughout the transition.

Current

Our total Scope 1 and 2 emissions for 2022-2023 have been measured at 25.71 tCO2e
(0.023 kgCO2e/£)

Targets

To achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2040.

To achieve 64% reduction in emissions by 2030.

2023-2024 Priorities

Improve monitoring and data collection process, particularly with respect to Scope 3 emissions
Monitor impact of Solar PV at Future Leap Gloucester Road
Thermal imaging assessment of Future Leap Clifton to highlight inefficiencies in building fabric
Explore energy saving opportunities to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions at Future Leap Clifton

Our Director of Partnerships and Head of Sustainability sits on the One City Environment and Sustainability Board. More information can be found here.

The Future Leap Hubs

Our hub on Gloucester Road forms the epicentre of Future Leap’s community of change makers and showcases innovative technologies. Complete with a co-working space, and eco-lifestyle shop, sustainability is embedded throughout the building itself, having been reconditioned and re-purposed before opening in early 2020.

The hub includes original features such as an old stone partition wall and 1930’s wooden flooring, which have been kept, ensuring zero waste to landfill.

One of the largest living walls in Bristol spans the length of the building to help improve air quality and promote biodiversity in the area, including pollinator-friendly plants.

Cutting edge tech, such as a state-of-the-art air source heat pump, a mechanical ventilation heat recovery system and energy efficient LED lighting has helped the hub to reduce its carbon footprint. Even the carpets are made from discarded fishing nets removed from the ocean.

Here, we showcase sustainability-related products, green technologies and services to help other businesses and the general public consider what they might be able to do to reduce their environmental impact.

Our Clifton Hub is the second of our co-working sites and is located within a beautiful period building. The retrofit of this building was more challenging due to its structure and functionality. Therefore, we have a taken a staged approach with the retrofit. Future Leap Clifton is operated as a joint venture with the building owners who have agreed to our sustainability charter and a plan to implement further site improvements.

As with the Gloucester Road Hub, the Clifton hub is classified as carbon neutral through measurement and reduction of emissions and subsequent offsetting. Improvements recently made include utilising reclaimed wood, second hand furniture and installing low energy LED lighting. As we implement future improvements this will reduce our overall footprint and offsetting requirements. We want to show that even with a period building, it is possible to retrofit and work towards minimising your environmental impact.

We will report annually on our progress with carbon reduction at Future Leap Clifton.

For future co-working sites, property owners will be required to sign up to a charter which commits them to future additional changes to the building regarding social and environmental sustainability.

A Sustainable Business Network

The Future Leap Network has various opportunities available to help you accelerate your sustainability journey.

The Network offers knowledge sharing and networking via their weekly sustainability-related events (free to members). Network members also benefit from personalised business introductions and have the opportunity to influence the Bristol region’s sustainable development via the One City Environmental Sustainability Board (of which, the Head of Partnerships & Sustainability, Katherine Piper is a board member).

To further encourage accessibility, we offer discounted event tickets to students and underserved groups.

Why not also consider joining the Network and benefiting from our weekly sustainability-related business networking events?

You could also sign up to our newsletter or follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin or Instagram to keep abreast of sustainability news and opportunities.

Sustainability Consultancy

In order to assist others in progressing towards net zero, we offer a dedicated sustainability consultancy service, advising the business community in reducing their carbon footprint and enhancing their sustainable business practices.

Our consultancy offers:

Carbon and net-zero services: Carbon foot-printing, carbon reduction plans, net-zero strategy and roadmaps, certification and offsetting recommendations
Sustainability assessments, policy development and action planning
Green technology assessments: option comparison with business case advice
Renewable energy feasibility studies and integration advice
B Corp impact assessment coaching, mentoring and accreditation.
Implementation of environmental management solutions including ISO 14001
Digital, website and e-commerce sustainability optimisation
Supply and install of low-carbon retrofit solutions

Alongside working directly with clients to progress their sustainability ambitions, the Future Leap consultancy team partner with higher education providers (such as UWE and Bath Spa University) to offer workshops and courses designed to educate business owners and leaders in sustainability-focused subjects.

B Corp Accreditation

We have made a commitment to gain B-Corp accreditation and have completed our B-Impact Assessment; the tool to measure our impact on our workers, community, the environment and our customers.

We have a dedicated B Corp Consultant – who can support other organisations through their B Corp application and audit. Get in touch if this would be useful and do also keep an eye on our upcoming events for our popular B Corp workshops.

Sustainable Travel

When inviting clients to events, our Festival or the Hub, we give active and public transport options in the first instance.

The Future Leap sustainable business hubs are easily accessible by both bus and train, have secure bike storage, lockers and showers to promote active travel and also have an electric charge point.

Future Leap Network members and clients can benefit from various sustainability discounts and perks from within the community.

Venues

When hosting external events, we choose venues who have demonstrated their commitment towards sustainability and work with venue providers to ensure that sustainability is considered throughout their programmes, including consideration of appropriate heating and lighting and the provision of sustainably sourced refreshments.

Food and Catering

Any external caterers we use are briefed in relation to our sustainability requirements.

We supported the Going for Gold initiative, a campaign that works to improve Bristol’s food systems and led to the city achieving its Gold Sustainable Food Award in June 2021.

And finally, for our annual Festival of Sustainable Business Awards Ceremony at The Bristol hotel (Green Tourism Gold Award, Trip Advisor Green Leaders Gold Award), we liaise with the hotel to ensure that vegan, Fairtrade, organic and local options are on the menu and we ensure that the default option on the menu is the vegan option. This led to all attendees at the 2023 Awards Ceremony eating vegan with no-one opting for the meat option.

Waste Management

At our events, the Festival of Sustainable Business and at the Future Leap hubs, we provide separated waste/recycling bins and to minimise unnecessary waste, we encourage attendees to bring re-usable coffee cup and water bottles. There is a refill station at the Hub and at various locations throughout the city centre, you can find the nearest refill station below.

Carbon Offsetting

We chose Gold Standard accredited offset providers to offset the carbon emissions of the Festival, our events and and Future Leap’s carbon neutral sustainable business hubs.

Supporting our Not-for-Profit Partners

The Future Leap Network has three not-for-profit partners who we support financially and with other member benefits. These are Babbasa, Nature Connection CIC and Digilocal.

Our partners receive free Future Leap Network membership for a year, free exhibition space at the Festival of Sustainable Business and opportunities to showcase their services through Future Leap.

Health and Wellbeing

It is important to us that we support the wellbeing of the Future Leap team and our community of changemakers. We encourage feedback and open dialogue from within the team on health, wellbeing and wider issues. As such, we offer:

Wellbeing Wednesdays – encouragement to attend regular yoga, breathwork and wellbeing-related events
Fresh Air Breaks – encouragement to take a break from the desk, go outside, move and connect with nature and one another
Netwalking – bi-monthly walks in green spaces whilst networking
Away Days and Socials – monthly Dinner and Drinks free to our community of changemakers, and Future Leap team away-days (in 2022, we had a walk and pub lunch along the canal near Bradford-on-Avon, a team picnic and rounders on the Downs alongside our regular pizza-and-pint nights out)
Moans and Gratitudes – The team are encouraged to attend a monthly team meeting where each team member shares what they are working on and (if they want to) a moan and/or gratitude.

Expertise in Sustainability

Future Leap’s senior management team collectively hold 3 Masters (MSc) qualifications in Sustainable Development in Practice plus experience working in the green tech sector in the UK and internationally. Future Leap’s founder Alan Bailey, was awarded an Honorary MSc by the University of the West of England for his work in supporting the South West and UK low carbon economy and is a leading UK advocate for sustainable economic development.

We support a fantastic team of individuals passionate about sustainability and the environment; a number of whom have also been awarded undergraduate or postgraduate degrees in environmental and sustainability-related subjects.