iAdvize Achieves Its Best Carbon Footprint to Date

For the third year in a row, iAdvize has assessed the carbon footprint of its company activities. In 2023, we successfully reduced our CO₂e emissions by 22%! This improvement reflects the collective effort of all our employees and encourages us to continue our emission reduction and corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. To commemorate this milestone, let’s look behind-the-scenes at the comprehensive approach we took, across our internal organization, partners, and clients, to achieve this.

Origins of the Emission Reduction Initiative

In September 2022, all of iAdvize gathered in Lacanau, a coastal region in southwestern France, for a summer seminar. Coincidentally, this event happened at the same time as the devastating fires that ravaged over 250 miles of French forests in the region.

As iAdvize leaders took the stage to present the year’s achievements and the company’s future outlook, water-bombing helicopters were continuously refilling from Lacanau Lake, a short distance behind the stage where they spoke, to extinguish the fires nearby. 

It was in this urgent context that Julien Hervouët, CEO of iAdvize, expressed his commitment to reducing the company’s carbon footprint. He was inspired by the ‘Net Zero’ initiative, which, according to the 2018 IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C, aims to achieve “the situation where anthropogenic net CO₂ emissions are balanced globally by anthropogenic CO₂ removals over a given period.”

After the seminar, Julien asked for volunteers willing to participate in discussions and take action on the crucial issue. This call was met with enthusiasm, as many people at iAdvize had already expressed their desire for the company to get involved. From there, the Impact Group was born.

To kick off the discussion and guide initial actions, the first step was to conduct a carbon assessment.

Carbon Assessment: What’s New in 2023 

After two years of assessments, 2023 this was the first time our carbon assessment was based on physical data rather than monetary data. Instead of measuring by dollars, we used physical units, like watts, to make the data more accurate.

Each carbon assessment is conducted across three scopes. Unsurprisingly, the company’s emissions almost exclusively came from Scope 3. 

• Scope 1: Direct greenhouse gas emissions (emissions from combustions at the workplace)
• Scope 2: Indirect emissions from energy (energy consumption that doesn’t directly emit at the workplace)
• Scope 3: Other indirect emissions (purchasing services, etc.)

Like most service companies, the majority of our carbon emissions are linked to those of our partners.

We recorded 1,360 tons of carbon emissions in 2023, which is the best result the company has had so far. Total carbon emissions decreased by 22% compared to 2022, which was 1,752 tons.

What enabled us to reduce our CO₂e emissions by 390 tons?

The Actions Behind Our Positive Results

We attributed the reduction in our carbon footprint in 2023 to two main focuses.  

Reducing Our Digital Footprint

Our conversational commerce platform is responsible for nearly 40% of our total emissions, so our teams dedicated a significant part of their efforts to reducing them. In 2023, the platform accounted for 536 tons of CO₂e, which were distributed among data storage, the digital services we purchase, the networks and devices used by our users, and the travel of our engineers.

Our teams used two key strategies to help reduce our digital footprint:

• Optimizing the most used product features
• Eliminating features that were less frequently used

Reducing Company Spending

In 2023, purchases still accounted for 58% of our total carbon footprint. And yet, between 2022 and 2023, emissions decreased by 247 tCO₂e. How did this happen? 

The main contributing factor to this result was our push to offset company spending by streamlining our business travel. This saved us 30 tCO₂e, and can be attributed to the efforts of the ‘Travel’ initiative led by the Impact Group, which focused on researching and developing a more environmentally friendly internal policy for air travel. 

Furthermore, we got a more accurate assessment of our carbon footprint by including our service providers in the process.  

We found that these actions positively impacted not only the company's internal emissions levels, but also our clients.

The Benefit for iAdvize Clients

Our carbon assessment is proof that companies' energy use is interconnected. Ultimately, we operate in a world of interdependence. 

Our clients include over 350 direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and online retailers, like Samsung, OtterBox, and Caudalie, with hundreds of e-commerce projects between them. Reducing our emissions involves measuring our economic intensity as it relates to these businesses.

What is economic intensity? This is the ratio between our CO₂ emissions and our sales for the year, and is a useful tool for comparing carbon performance to other companies. 

In 2023, iAdvize's economic intensity significantly decreased. 

Our improvements allow us to make a positive impact within our ecosystem and encourage our clients to focus on their own economic intensity, if they aren’t doing so already. 

iAdvize's efforts to reduce our carbon emissions in 2023 are a testament to our collective commitment and motivate us to continue taking action. We hope it inspires you too!