The process of verifying your carbon emissions requires a lot of data gathering, number crunching and in some cases conversion if you’re international. It’s certainly no small task!

However, it’s worth the effort. With it completed you will have a much better idea of your current impact and be able to make better informed decisions on how to reduce it. When starting out on your verification journey you’ll need to start with calculating your scope 1 & 2 emissions, these are the direct and indirect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that your business is responsible for.

That alone can be quite a mammoth task, especially if you have a lot of locations worldwide, such is the case as today’s guest: Culligan.

In this episode, Mel is joined by Martin Murden, ESG Manager at Culligan International, to discuss why Culligan started their verification journey, the key insights uncovered, and the challenges involved with calculating emissions for a large international organisation.

You’ll learn

· Who is Martin Murden?

· Who are Culligan International?

· Why are Culligan seeking third-party verification for scope 1 & 2?

· Key insights uncovered as a result of verification

· What changes have they made to their data collection processes?

· How did internal teams find the experience?

· How have Culligan utilised verified data?

· What is the biggest misconception about the verification process?

Resources

· Culligan International

· Carbonology

· Culligan 2024 ESG Report

In this episode, we talk about:

[02:05] Episode Summary – Mel Blackmore is joined by Martin Murden, ESG Manager at Culligan, to discuss their carbon verification journey and explore the challenges associated with calculating scope 1 & 2 emissions for a large international organisation.

[03:25] Who is Martin Murden? Martin is an ESG Manager at Culligan, his role focuses more on the environmental aspect of ESG compliance.

His main role involves looking after Culligan’s carbon emissions, carbon reduction plan, evaluating use of resources and exploring initiatives to reduce their current impact.

One fun fact that not many people know about Martin, one of his ancestors was involved in the creation of Turkish delight!

[06:25] Who are Culligan International? Culligan International are a global leader in water services. Their solutions provide cleaner, safer, better tasting water.

While not a household name here in the UK, chances are if you’re refilling a bottle from a cooler, it’s likely derived from one of Culligan’s brands.

They own over 100 businesses in over 40 countries, with more than 600 sites ranging from warehouses and offices to production and water bottling plants. They also manage 7000 vehicles which help with delivering, installing and maintaining their equipment.

With over 15,000 people working at Culligan, it’s clear to say that it’s a large organisation with a lot of moving parts.

They keep sustainability at the heart of their business, working to discourage the use of single use plastic, and looking at other ways to reduce their impact via their supply chain.

[08:45] Why did Culligan seek third-party carbon verification? – There were a few reasons, including: -

Regulatory requirements: Being a global business, there are a number of mandatory reporting requirements coming down the pipeline in certain countries they operate in, such as Australia and Mexico, Canada, California.

Accuracy: Part of these requirements is assuring the transparency and accuracy of the data. Third-party assurance is essential to meet mandatory reporting requirements, in addition to being an added level of assurance for stakeholders.

From an internal point of view, it also gives the ESG team more confidence in the gathered data, allowing them to form a more robust baseline for their decarbonisation strategy.

[10:15] Culligan’s decarbonisation strategy – In 2024, Culligan published a number of commitments, one of those was to reduce its scope 1 and 2 carbon emissions by 40% by 2035.

They built a decarbonisation plan based on information that they had available internally. This consisted of looking at vehicle fleet use and facilities use, how large they are and what kind of energy sources they use.

They also spoke to individual business units to understand where it may be possible to switch to renewable energy sources, how initial energy use could be reduced and making use of lower carbon vehicles.

They were confident in their ability to reduce their impact, but they needed that third-party assurance that their initial baseline was as accurate as possible.

[11:35] Is this the first time Culligan has gone through a formal verification process? – While they have measured their carbon emissions since 2022, they have never formally gone through the full verification process before.

[11:55] How did they prepare for the formal verification process? – The first step was selecting a reputable carbon verification body to verify their calculations. They opted to go ahead with Carbonology, spending a lot of time with their assigned auditor to:

· Understand what the requirements were

· Ascertain what the priorities were

· Understand what evidence was required

They also needed to clearly communicate internally so that all their stakeholders and data owners were aware of what was required from them and when they needed to provide it by.

Martin has found that over the past 3 years of collating data required for carbon emission calculations, they have greatly improved their level of accuracy and accountability.

With the goal of carbon verification providing a much-needed focus, they’ve been able to identify potential gaps in their evidence received from local data owners.

[14:10] How did Culligan find the experience of working with Carbonology?:- They were pleasantly surprised! ISO Standard audits can be daunting at the best of times as you’re not really sure what to expect, however, Carbobology were great at guiding the process so it all ran smoothly.

This included a process of daily review meetings and establishing a daily agenda and priorities. Martin found himself looking forward to those meetings as they opened up the opportunity to discuss how to improve the accuracy of data in addition to the collection methods.

[16:05] What were the key insights Culligan found when going through the carbon verification process? – They certainly had a few surprises along the way, mostly positive, including: -

Exposing inaccuracies: There were cases of inaccuracies in their original data, where data owners accidentally added an extra 0, or accidentally selected gigawatt hours instead of kilowatt hours when uploading submissions. Going through this process allowed them to tidy up their data.

Identifying high energy usage: Using this updated accurate data, they could then identify what sites had a higher-than-average rate of energy consumption.

Holistic approach: The data provided a fuller picture of where their emissions were over or understated. They could then interrogate any irregularities and look at where improvements could be made, in addition to updating their data collection methods where necessary.

[18:35] What changes have Culligan made to their data collection and reporting process as a result of verification? – They’re now looking at other options for collecting data.

Ideally, they’d like to connect their data to a centralised sources, rather than having to approach each business individually. With over 100 businesses owned, you can appreciate that this is quite a time consuming task!

There are other opportunities such as getting API links in place directly with their back office systems and utility providers, so that manual intervention isn’t required.

Technology related to carbon data collection is advancing each year, there are a number of platforms that can make this process more efficient. For example, Culligan are looking into OCR software that can read PDF supplier invoices so that this no longer has to be a manual activity.

Looking forward, they would like to capture evidence needed for the audit process at the point of data entry, rather than having to ask data owners a second time to provide copies of invoices they’d already populated in a different database.

[20:55] Were there any unexpected challenges or collaboration as a result of the carbon verification process? – Martin was expecting some pushback, however he was pleasantly surprised with the amount of buy-in they had from local business units. It seemed they really understood the benefits to the business on their level and for Culligan as a whole.

As they’d been collating data for a few years now, a process was already in place meaning there was minimal work to do on their end.

Many of their local businesses have found it a real benefit to have this information available, as many clients and prospective clients are asking about their sustainability credentials.

Also, having credible third-party verification validating their claims gives them a step up from competitors, in addition to providing those clients assurance that Culligan followed due diligence.

[23:05] What additional value has third-party verification provided? –The main benefits were strengthening stakeholder trust and improved reporting confidence internally.

The initial reactions that Culligan had from colleagues once they’d shared the news that they’d passed the accreditation was an extremely positive one. Shortly after they were inundated with requests from their global business units for copies of the ISO certificate provided by Carbonology, so that they could share it with their clients and customers.

It's also provided some much-needed confidence to the ESG team in terms of combatting claims of greenwashing. With verification against the internally recognised standard ISO 14064, they know they won’t have anyone challenging the validity of their carbon emission figures.

[25:00] How else will the verified data be utilised across Culligan? – Sustainability is a key focus for Culligan, this information provides a starting point for meaning reduction in their impact, in addition to satisfying stakeholder requirements and requests for the data. It short, it benefits everyone.

Culligan have recently published their 3rd annual ESG report, and the verification is referred to regularly throughout that report, in addition to their external communications throughout the year.

This step has shown that they’re not simply jumping on the Net Zero bandwagon, they want to really understand their impact so that they can make meaningful change. In the short-term, they’re looking to tackle their scope 3 emissions within the next 12 months, and hopefully get third-party verification for those as well.

[27:15] What are Culligan’s medium and long terms goals for sustainability? – Scope 3 is the next thing they want to tackle, however, that will not be a small undertaking. They used predominantly purchased goods and services data to estimate their upstream emissions, so they need to hone in on those and ensure that they retain the same level of accuracy and consistency as the process used to calculate the scope 1 and 2 emissions.

The ESG journey is not linear, and will constantly adapt and flex as they move forward. Their main goal is simply to reduce emissions, through a reduction in resources used and the promotion of sustainability efforts such as reducing the use of single use plastic.

[29:05] What is the biggest misconception about the verification process? – For Martin, this is the fear of the unknown. For a large organisation like Culligan, this was daunting at first. Having to communicate to all their different stakeholders what the requirements are and what data and evidence was needed.

For the verification process, it was a worry if they were in for a long and painful process. In actuality, it was 8 days worth of preparation followed by 8 days of reviewing, which was much more painless than anticipated!

It’s all about establishing effective processes to manage this task on an annual basis. It will soon become business as usual, so the burden will reduce year on year. It can be challenging to start with, which is where third-party expertise can help fill the gaps in your knowledge.

[31:35] Martin’s book recommendations – The Coming Storm: Why water will write the 21st century by Liam Fox

[26:35] Martin’s favorite quotes – ‘We don't need 100 perfect activists, but millions of imperfect ones’ – Clover Hogan founder of Force of Nature.

‘Preserve wildlife. Pickle a squirrel.’ – Philosophy from a London bathroom stall.

If you’d like to learn more about Culligan, check out their Website and Linkedin.

If you’d like any assistance with Carbon Verification, feel free to get in touch with Carbonology, they’d be happy to help.

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