28 March 2025
Hunter’s B Corp Journey: Our Environmental Impact
In our last blog, we reflected on the past year since we began our B Corp certification journey, discussing what motivated us to pursue this certification and why we chose B Corp. We delved into the social impact aspects of B Corp, and now it’s time to focus on the environmental impact—definitely the more challenging part!
In this blog, we’ll share what we planned and achieved in terms of environmental impact at Hunter.
If you missed it, check out our blog on ‘why B Corp matters’.
As a recruitment consultancy celebrating our 20th anniversary this year, we understand people.
People have always been our focus—whether it’s our team, the communities we serve, the candidates we place, or those we help in finding new talent for their teams. We are a people-focused business!
Measuring and evidencing social impact for B Corp certification was definitely easier for us to grasp, and we were already well on our way to scoring highly in this area.
Of the 218 questions within the five impact areas in the B Lab Impact Assessment (BIA), many were more aligned with people-focused initiatives rather than environmental ones. However, the environmental section still posed a significant challenge with its 34 questions, introducing new terminology and concepts that were fairly unfamiliar to us as a recruitment business.
With one building we owned and the other two landlord-owned, achieving equity across all locations has been tricky. Despite our efforts to level up in all aspects, ensuring uniform work environments has been challenging. The flexibility we have in our owned building to make changes isn’t always available in the leased offices.
Reviewing our 2024 plans for environmental impact
We improved our carbon footprint by 9% in 2024 compared to 2023 on a like-for-like basis (KGCo2e).
In 2024, our Portishead building achieved a positive energy status, generating more electrical energy than consumed through PV panels. Returning nearly 8,000 kWh of green energy to the national grid free of charge.
Greater mindfulness around recycling includes understanding our landlord’s setup, labelling and using the correct bins, tracking usage and measuring reductions, recycling coffee pods, monitoring solar energy usage, car sharing, and being stricter about hotel use and travel to events.
Previously, we only held external stakeholders accountable for their work (suppliers) and the facilities they provided (landlords). However, in 2024, as part of the B Corp certification process, we introduced annual landlord and supplier surveys. This led to increased collaboration and opened up conversations about how they could improve and support our goals. We learned more about their operations and how we can work together.
As a result, we will be moving offices in Cardiff in 2025. We have already set expectations with the landlord and track utilities consumption in all buildings each month. This approach works towards equitable facilities for everyone, regardless of their location within Hunter.
Through the B Corp process we realised that as we had grown over the years we weren’t analysing enough data or return on investment from our suppliers to make informed decisions. To address this, we’ve implemented more process, captured more data, and increased ownership and accountability both internally and with external stakeholders. Annually, we thoroughly review all supplier contracts to ensure we’re getting the best value and that employees have top-tier resources to do their jobs.
Additionally, we track all utilities usage to maintain visibility of our carbon footprint alongside the annual surveys we have introduced for internal and external stakeholders.
We also…
- Purchased a new building opposite our current location to facilitate company growth and provide more opportunities for career progression.
- With our new building, we dedicated more rooms to virtual meetings to minimise travel and created spaces for private, quiet time and prayer.
- We also introduced environmental policies to formalise our ongoing commitment to prioritising local and eco-friendly suppliers.
- We reviewed utilities providers and moved to a carbon neutral tariff for electricity and gas.
- Measured impact of Teams Meetings v Site meetings in miles and CO2 saved.
- LED lights and sensors added to both buildings in Portishead.
- Bought recycled office and meeting furniture for refit.
Read the latest version of our ESG here
If you are looking to learn more about becoming a B Corp, or working with a B Corp recruiter on your job search or next recruitment project then please do get in touch
Email: clairet@hunterselection.co.uk
Call: 01275 371981