As a global organisation, it’s important that we understand the impact that our business has on communities and environments that we operate in. Steel Blue’s Australian Operations are now carbon neutral. Steel Blue has achieved Scope 3 Climate Active Certification for its Australian business operations. This is an independent verification of achieving net zero emissions. Steel Blue is the first safety boot manufacturer in Australia to receive the Climate Active Certification.

Climate Active is an Australian Government-backed initiative that awards certification to businesses and organisations that have credibly reached a state of net zero emissions. The Scope 3 certification is the highest level of Climate Active Certification and requires businesses to account for emissions factors including, but not limited to, employee commutes, upstream and downstream transportation and distribution, the collection of raw materials, and 3^rd party business services.

Steel Blue has been working toward carbon neutrality across business and supply chains since 2019. To receive the Climate Active Certification, Steel Blue accounted for emissions and impacts both upstream and downstream of the business’s value chain. It reduced those emissions as far as possible and offset the rest by investing in projects in Western Australia and Indonesia – the two areas where Steel Blue operates and manufactures Steel Blue boots for the global market.

In Western Australia, we have invested in the Australian Native Reforestation Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor, which is a native reforestation project aiming to remove existing carbon from the atmosphere today, and recreate a healthy landscape that has seen decades of degradation and habitat loss. The project was established on degraded, semi-arid agricultural land, with the goal of returning the environment to its origins. For more information about the project, go to: https://carbonneutral.com.au/yarra-yarra-biodiversity-corridor/

In Indonesia, we have invested in the Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project, which focusses on community development by engaging with local communities to improve their food security, health care, education and job opportunities. The project also focuses on biodiversity conservation, with the protection of over 100,000 endangered Borneo Orangutans. For more information about this project go to: https://www.naturalcapitalpartners.com/projects/project/rimba-raya-biodiversity-reserve

Now that our Australian operations are carbon neutral, we will continue to strive to have the rest of our international business operations carbon neutral by 2025.

Steel Blue’s Carbon Offsets Certificates:

• Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor
• Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve Project

While our Australian Business operations have now been offset, our Carbon Neutral Plan will enable us to fully offset all of our unavoidable operational GHG emissions and freight emissions, generated by our business globally, through the purchase of carbon offsets.

Our achievements toward becoming Carbon Neutral by 2025, include the completion of a preliminary audit to establish our base carbon outputs for our Australian operations and the purchase of these offsets, in order to have our Australian operations carbon neutral. This has now been completed and we are pleased to say that our Australian operations are carbon neutral.

We will now conduct further audits on our international business operations, with the aim to offset all carbon produced by our operational business globally, by 2025.

The system is currently generating 71% of our power during peak operation periods, and 100% during off-peak operation periods. We have also replaced all lighting with LED throughout our premises, significantly lowering our energy usage.