COMPANY OVERVIEW: Gray Dawes, in partnership with Forest Carbon, has created a carbon offset programme designed specifically for business travellers. LEGACY ensures its clients’ business travel can be managed with a tangible focus on sustainability. That’s great for its clients’ travellers, the organisation, the business travel industry and, of course, the planet.
From clients’ travel bookings data, carbon emissions are calculated using the DEFRA model and the numbers are transferred (anonymously) to partners, Forest Carbon. They turn that data into Carbon Credits. With a range of UK-based or international woodland and peatland projects to choose from within the LEGACY portfolio, the clients’ carbon credits are then invested in the product of their choice.
KEY FACTS:
Founder: Gray Dawes Group
Launch date: 2021
Geographic reach: Global
CREDENTIALS: Inspired by the Environmental Sustainability Goals published at COP26 and in support of the Business Travel Association’s own ESG initiative, the LEGACY ‘product’ is evolving into a behaviour – adapting the spirit of LEGACY into a series of Pledges which Gray Dawes staff are getting behind in order to achieve a better tomorrow. This internal code of conduct is all about doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do and includes a number of initiatives from reducing their own carbon footprint to supporting foodbanks at each of their office locations throughout the UK.
PROPRIETARY PROPOSITION: Sustainability is extremely close to the hearts of the Gray Dawes team, a family-owned business since 1927. Such is the commitment to achieving carbon neutrality, the owners – the Inchcape family – have converted nearly 300 acres of working farmland on their Glenapp Estate in Ayrshire, Scotland, to permanent woodland creation. Occupying an area the size of 200 football pitches, the project will sequest at 42,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. This exciting project at Glenapp Estate is just one of the many projects Gray Dawes clients can choose to support as their LEGACY carbon offsetting programme.
TARGET MARKET: LEGACY is targeted at sustainable-minded businesses in the Gray Dawes client portfolio.
COMMERCIAL MODEL: The business operates a transparent model for its clients’ purchase of certified carbon credits.
BLACK BOX COMMENT: This is an offsetting scheme with a difference. The approach to ‘keeping it in the family’, with the project on the Inchcape family estate, is a unique one. This creates a tangible solution for businesses wishing to have complete visibility of the impact of their carbon credits. I love the fact that LEGACY is becoming a set of behavioural pillars for the entire business and look forward to hearing more as this evolves.
