Social procurement acknowledges that every purchase has a social, cultural, environmental and economic impact, whether intended or not. While we often focus on social and cultural impacts of social procurement, the environmental impacts require attention as well. A healthy community needs a healthy environment. Social sustainability and environmental sustainability efforts are inextricably linked. 

Buy Social Canada keeps environmental sustainability as a core component of our social procurement work – both in consulting with clients and in our own social procurement decision making. To further advance sustainability in our own activities and in the wider community, Buy Social Canada has joined the Government of Canada Net-Zero Challenge.

We acknowledge that the transition to a focus on net-zero commitments has been a successful tactic employed by the fossil fuel sector. This focus on net-zero legitimizes continued fossil fuel extraction on the premise that we can balance continued rampant carbon emissions with carbon capture, a practice that fossil fuels can then be funded to develop.

That said, the rapidly changing climate will jeopardize the ability for our ecosystems to support life. So we are engaging in this program to interrogate what changes we can make to reduce our own carbon emissions. While continuing to advocate for broader systems change.

Requiring your suppliers to measure and report on their emissions is another step you can take to encourage and support emissions reduction.

What is the Net-Zero Challenge?

The Net-Zero Challenge encourages businesses to develop and implement credible and effective plans to transition their facilities and operations to net-zero emissions by 2050 or earlier.

The Government of Canada is committed to reducing Canada’s emissions by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2030 and putting Canada on a path to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Getting Canada to net-zero emissions by 2050 will require collaboration and innovation across all parts of society, including the private sector. Unlocking further emissions reductions and planning now for a net-zero future is essential to try to maintain the ecosystems that support life on earth in the face of increasing fossil-fuel induced disasters.

The Challenge aims to build a community of practice around net-zero planning in Canada, where ideas and best practices can be shared, and where participants can collaborate to further their own net-zero plans.

Buy Social Canada commits to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030.

Our total estimated emissions in 2024 was 9,942.20 kg, approximately 10 tonnes, of CO2. There are some elements of our scope 3 emissions that are challenging to calculate, such as internet data usage. We will continue to work to improve our measurement approaches next year.

• Scope 1 emissions: Zero. Buy Social Canada does not have any company-owned vehicles, nor fuel combustion.
• Scope 2 emissions: 534.06 kg of CO2. For Scope 2, we calculated our team’s utilities usage (purchased electricity, gas, and firewood) and considered our percentage of home usage for our home offices, and our average number of days working remotely. We had to deduct the days we’re working elsewhere, traveling for work, or on holiday. We converted our usage using 1 kWh of electricity = 0.014 kg of CO2 in BC.
• Scope 3 emissions: 9,408.14 kg of CO2. We calculated emissions from personal vehicle usage for work purposes (kms), flights, ferry rides, and use of public transport where data was recorded. We wanted to include emissions that are often left out of Scope 3. We first estimated our data storage in GB and calculated our total emissions considering 0.04 kgCO2e per year per GB. Then, we calculated our data usage considering the electricity usage of 0.066kWh per GB transferred. We estimated that our team uses up to 15GB of data per work day, so approximately 28,815GB a year.

Get involved

Join Buy Social Canada and make a commitment to achieve net-zero by 2030. Through our consulting services and Social Purchasing Partnerships we can support your organization to develop and implement social and sustainable procurement that can support emissions reductions in your supply chain.

Purchasers can include net-zero in their bid evaluation processes, and award points for businesses who have made a net-zero commitment, publicly reported on their emissions, and/or achieved set targets to reduce greenhouse gasses or other tactics to achieve net-zero. Find additional tools to work towards net-zero procurement from Buy Social Canada Community Champion Sustainability Advantage.