With nowadays concerns that the target of 1.5 degrees will slip, it is more important than ever for people and companies of any size to do their part in limiting emissions and preserving the environment.
As a global firm, Nowtilus strongly feels this moral duty and that is why we decided to calculate our carbon footprint annually, limiting it as much as we can and constantly looking for areas of improvement. Our company proudly joined the Race to Zero effort promoted by the United Nations and we actively encourage our network of suppliers, customers, and partners to do the same for a close to carbon-neutral media-tech industry. In order to do our part, we aligned to the goal of halving emissions of Nowtilus company facilities and our Software-as-a-Service solution Serverside.ai by 2030.
How Nowtilus plans to align with the 1.5°C ambition
To achieve the NetZero goal, we divided our emissions into Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 to better monitor them.
Scope 1 includes all the direct emissions like company facilities and vehicles.
Scope 2 involves indirect consumption like purchased electricity, steam, heating, and cooling for own use.
Scope 3 is about indirect emissions both from upstream and downstream activities. More in detail:
Purchased goods and services, capital goods, fuel, and energy-related activities, transportation & distribution, waste generated in operations, business travel, employee commuting, and leased assets for the upstream part of the company’s supply chain activities;
Transportation and distribution, processing of solid products, use of solid products, end-life treatment, leased assets, franchises, and investments for the downstream part of the supply chain.
Regarding Scope 3, being Nowtilus a service company, our carbon emissions are located in the upstream processes.
A measurement approach as accurate as possible is the first step to limiting environmental footprint. This is the reason why we decided to analyze carbon emissions on an annual basis.
In order to monitor our progress, and following the UN 1.5°C Business Guide, we selected 2022 as the base year, also to be transparent by not selecting the years 2021 and 2020 as the baseline, which were uniquely impacted by the Covid pandemic.
For our measurement, we then chose the following key performance indicators (KPIs):
Scope 1 Footprint (kgCo2 per year)
Scope 2 Footprint (kgCo2 per year)
Scope 3 Footprint (kgCo2 per year
Total Emissions (kgCo2 per year)
Emissions per 1000 € Revenue
Total Improvement Margin (%) ≥ 8.5%
Total Margin of Improvement (kgCo2)
Equivalent number of km by car
Equivalent number of trips from Berlin to Paris by train
Equivalence in smartphones manufactured
We calculated that we should reduce our absolute emissions by at least 8.5% per year to halve our footprint by 2030 in accordance with the NetZero Standard.
We consequently identified the main factors that contribute to our emissions and we defined a set of corrective actions for each one that we will outline in the following sections.
Factors that contribute to our emissions
Being Nowtilus an ad tech company providing a cloud-based ad insertion platform for publishers, most of our energy consumption is software and IT devices related, apart from our two physical offices and business travel emissions.
So, after careful evaluation, we identified and grouped the main factors that contribute to our carbon footprint as follows:
Electricity and heating systems for offices in Berlin and Halle
Employees and contractors working from home with their IT equipment and related energy consumption
Business travels
Server space and server operations for our cloud infrastructure
Ways how we reduce those emissions
Nowtilus is a company growing at a significant pace, so the measure of emissions per 1000 € revenue is an important indicator that we are focusing on to limit our environmental impact despite the growth of our business. As a digital-first company, an IT service provider covering technology for streaming platforms and broadcasters, our impact is already limited compared to other sectors.
Nevertheless, we decided to push this even further with our company guidelines regarding smart working, train travel, and IT devices.
Electricity and heating systems for offices in Berlin and Halle
Nowtilus has two office spaces: one in Berlin, and the other one in Halle. We rely on green energy providers for both of them but we are growingly encouraging our people to work from home several days per week in order to limit our energy consumption, and also to make our employees avoid the pollution derived from commuting to the workplace. Most of our lights are LED and we will replace the remaining non-LED bulbs by the end of the year. In addition to that, we will lower Nowtilus offices' heating systems by a couple of degrees during the winter, in order to save more energy and also act responsibly with the currently even more limited resources.
Employees and contractors working from home with their IT equipment and related energy consumption
Since Nowtilus is an international company, and with Berlin and Halle, our headquarters are located in Germany, around 50% of our personnel regularly perform their tasks remotely, while the other half have a hybrid work routine, with days in the office and others working from home.
We also adopted a “Bring Your Own Device” policy so our employees work using their desktop computers, laptops, and screens, in general. That is why we decided to give them a manual to limit their IT equipment energy consumption and to include the related guidelines in our company culture manifesto. As a positive side effect, the use of their own devices avoids duplicating the device footprint that e.g., operating a private and a separate business notebook would have.
Business travels
Travels to customers and tradeshows are other key topics when talking about emissions. We strongly encourage our people at all company levels to take public transportation during their business trips and we choose trains instead of planes for short to mid-distance travel, limiting long-distance ones to an absolutely necessary minimum.
Server space and server operations for our cloud infrastructure
We use Microsoft Azure for our Serverside.ai cloud infrastructure and we utilize their Cloud Carbon Tracking app to calculate our cloud footprint. In detail, we:
Measure direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions related to Serverside.ai cloud usage.
Track our avoided emissions over time through Microsoft data center efficiency.
Regularly export our findings, shown in CO2-equivalent metric tons.
Measurement & Report
In order to monitor our progress, we selected 2022 as our base year, always taking into consideration the relationship between the growth of our company and the related emissions.
We will then compare the carbon footprint of each year to evaluate how things are developing and to apply the necessary corrective measures if and when needed.
We will analyze the chosen KPIs each year at mid-year and at the end of the year to assess whether we are meeting the UN goals, and we will make the final results public annually on our website. Download our 2022 Carbon Emission Report in PDF! December 2023 Update: we are now calculating our emissions with Greenly, the go-to carbon accounting platform run by climate experts and trusted by more than 1500 businesses around the world.
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