Certificates, carbon accounting and reporting: This is how Phoenix Design Aid works with climate and sustainability

Photo: Groovy Graphic.

Phoenix Design Aid works actively with climate and sustainability and focuses especially on incorporating the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the company’s operations and daily life. In the article below, you can read more about what Phoenix Design Aid does to ensure that climate and sustainability is on the agenda for the company.

Phoenix Design Aid A/S is an international design and communication agency with expertise in graphic design and digital solutions. The company works with international and intergovernmental organizations, including the United Nations and European Union agencies, non-governmental organizations and public authorities. Phoenix Design Aid carries out all projects in accordance with internationally recognized principles of social responsibility as well as United Nations requirements. This includes a great focus on climate and sustainability.

ISO-certificates form the framework
Phoenix Design Aid is certified within Quality Management (ISO 9001), Environmental Management (ISO 14001), Occupational Health and Safety Management (ISO 45001) and the SDGs (11 targets within SDG 4, 12, 13 and 17). The certificates set requirements for how Phoenix Design Aid works with climate, sustainability and social responsibility.

“Our ISO 14001 certificate helps to ensure, among other things, that we work towards a better environmental performance and comply with legislations. It also ensures an increased awareness of sustainability,” says Dennis Lundø Nielsen, CEO of Phoenix Design Aid.

Phoenix Design Aid makes a risk assessment of the company’s environmental conditions as part of ISO 14001. Thus, the company considers both its direct (own) and indirect (suppliers and partners) environmental impacts. For that reason, Phoenix Design conducts an annual assessment of the company’s suppliers, which includes their efforts within the fields of sustainability and social responsibility.

Carbon accounting and sustainability report
Besides Phoenix Design Aid’s certificates, carbon accounting and reporting on the company’s initiatives within sustainability are two important areas.

Every year, Phoenix Design Aid conducts a ”Carbon Accounting Report” that provides an overview of the company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, specifically its emissions within electricity, heating, waste and business travel (scope 2 and 3). The report is made via CEMAsys.com which is a cloud service and tool for collecting, storing, analyzing and reporting on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Phoenix Design Aid enters data on the various greenhouse emissions in the service and receives afterwards a report.

“We use the report to monitor our emissions and to see if we reach the goals we have set,” says Dennis Lundø Nielsen, CEO of Phoenix Design Aid, adding that the data is also included in the company’s sustainability report.

Phoenix Design Aid uses its sustainability report to unfold the company’s initiatives within sustainability, climate and the SDGs through narrative stories that are greatly characterized by the 17 SDGs. This way, the report serves a management system for social responsibility as it explains how Phoenix Design Aid includes social responsibility and sustainability in its operations and daily life. The company’s sustainability report is also influenced by Phoenix Design Aid’s membership of the United Nations Global Compact as the company reports on the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact divided between four areas, whereof one is climate.

Increasing focus in the society
Awareness on climate, sustainability and social responsibility is a general increasing focus in the global society. Citizens, organizations, companies, institutions, political entities and many others place more and more emphasis on those areas, and it is starting to become a requirement in some sectors and areas. For example, customers make demands on it – both on the B2C- and B2B-markets.

“Our work with climate, sustainability and social responsibility is an important factor in our dialogue with our stakeholders, including especially our clients. We increasingly get inquiries on our work with climate and sustainability,” says Dennis Lundø Nielsen, CEO of Phoenix Design Aid and adds that these elements are also recur when the company’s project managers write bids.

This way, Phoenix Design Aid’s work with these areas taps into the surroundings that the company is in which gives them a basis for dialogue and understanding with, among others, their clients (both exciting and potential) and partners. Dennis Lundø Nielsen tells that Phoenix Design Aid experiences that their work with climate, sustainability and social responsibility also means that the company wins more projects, and that the company’s certificates has a positive effect on their reputation.

SDG 13: Climate Action
A part of Phoenix Design Aid’s work with the SDGs concerns SDG 13: Climate Action. The company is certified within target 13.1 and 13.3 and has a goal of minimizing the company’s CO2-emissions. At the moment, Phoenix Design Aid buys United Nations-issued emission credits and neutralizes this way its CO2 emissions. At the time of writing, Phoenix Design Aid works with a project that takes the step further by planting trees in Kenya. The aim of the project is to neutralize the company’s CO2 emissions combine climate action with the development of local areas in Kenya – for example by creating jobs and establishing an outdoor learning center. As it looks like right now, Phoenix Design Aid will be able to neutralize up to 40 tons of CO2 with the tree planting project.