Case study
How Kinetic Software is embarking on a bold new climate journey
SME
IT & Technology
Reforestation
Carbon credits
Kinetic Software was founded in 1998 with a mission to develop innovative software solutions for university accommodation and conferencing, and help deliver the best student and customer experience possible.
Now Kinetic is the technology partner of choice to leading universities and colleges all around the world. They supply software for over 350 customers, from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas to Monash in Australia, not to mention over 80% of the universities in the UK.
At a glance
1,380
230
2023
About Kinetic Software
Location
Global
Company size
77 UK-based employees
Industry
Software
Use case
Pledged to reduce business emissions and funded climate action
Services used
Tree planting, carbon avoidance credits (renewables, nature-based, community-based) and Climate Action Workforce
The issue
Kinetic Software is still relatively early in its climate journey. The story began when the business signed up to the SME Climate Hub Pledge to halve emissions by 2030, and reduce them to zero by 2050. Following this stake in the ground moment an internal Green Team was formed, with colleagues volunteering from all around the business to help identify the right sustainability goals, motivations and actions to realise their ambition.
Environmental stewardship is very much knitted into the cultural DNA of Kinetic. The team has planned community days to support the rangers at a local country park, arranged litter picks around the offices, explored fitting solar panels at their facilities, and promoted hosting and cloud-based solutions to help customers reduce energy use.Every employee can feel the benefit. Kinetic’s package of green employee benefits includes a company electric vehicle scheme, cycle to work programme, and free thermal camera loans for improving home energy efficiency.
The challenges
Financial constraints were an initial barrier to overcome at the start of the Kinetic climate journey. The cost of funding carbon avoidance for all UK employee emissions can add up to quite a large and complex investment if not handled in the right way. However, Ecologi helped to ease the burden by making all costs quick and easy to calculate, clearly transparent, and affordable for the business.
The solution
Since partnering with Ecologi, the Green Team has started to make some real changes at Kinetic. One of their first actions was to mitigate the emissions of their annual user conference by using our Impact Shop to purchase carbon avoidance equivalent to the footprint of the event. They also worked with Ecologi to plant trees for every attendee.
Now, as part of Kinetic’s employee benefits scheme, the team has decided to work with Ecologi to set up a Climate Action Workforce. This simple monthly subscription mitigates the emissions of all Kinetic employees, funds climate impact on their behalf, and offers a more meaningful perk to reward the team.
But Kinetic isn’t stopping there. The next step on their climate journey will be to calculate the business’s carbon footprint, and build an emissions reduction plan based on those findings. They are also exploring how our API and product integrations could support their cloud-based conferencing and student offerings in the future.
Sharing success is important to the team at Kinetic. They are currently working on a new website, and plan to place their climate achievements centre stage to inspire partners, customers and colleagues alike. They also regularly update employees on monthly carbon avoidance and tree planting, with links to the most recent projects and planting locations.
The results
Since October 2023, Kinetic Software has funded the planting of 1,380 trees, avoided 239 tonnes of CO2e and supported eight projects.
Kinetic has also enjoyed improved brand reputation and already noted an increased ability to attract and retain talent. Moving forward, communicating and showcasing the success of the Kinetic Green Team to internal and external audiences will be a company priority. The transparent, tangible and measurable impact that comes from working with Ecologi will be a key component of this.
"We’re a fairly new sustainability team trying to drive change in our business and wider industry, and Ecologi has given us a way to make a meaningful impact quickly and affordably. It has started conversations and supported us in creating a package of green benefits for employees that marks us out in the sector."
Alan Gore, Software Developer and Sustainability Associate at Kinetic Software
