Environment

Our Environmental Policy Statement provides a framework to support our progress towards our environmental objectives and address the associated risks with our own business operations. It covers climate change, energy, pollution, waste, water, travel and our supply chain.

We monitor and report on our corporate emissions using the World Resources Institute and World Business Council for Sustainability Development Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard.

Our operational Scope 1, 2 and 3 GHG emissions 2020 - 2024

Tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e)

First Sentier Investors December 2024

¹ Data may differ from that reported in prior First Sentier Investors reports, due to improvements in our calculation methodology, and updating our data using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Global Warming Potential (GWP), from the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) values. We have restated all years for comparability.

² In 2023, we expanded our Scope 3 reporting to Category, 1, 3, 5, 7 and 8. These emissions categories were reported for the first time in 2023.

³ In 2024, data centre emissions have been aggregated in Scope 3, Category 1 to align with our operational control approach to reporting. In previous FY22 and FY23 reporting, data centre emissions were separately reported as Scope 3, Category 8.

⁴ The emissions intensity is a metric used to measure the amount of greenhouse gas emissions per unit.

Calculation notes on our Emissions

Our Scope 1 emissions are from the combustion of natural gas in our Edinburgh office and currently excludes diesel (as part of stationary combustion) and refrigerants as these are immaterial to our operational GHG inventory. We do not have any company vehicles, and therefore no associated transport fuel contributing to our Scope 1 emissions.

Our Scope 2 emissions are from electricity and steam in our global offices. Our reporting includes the renewable electricity we purchase either via the energy retailer or through contracted Renewable Energy Certificates, which is reflected in the market-based method reporting. For some of our serviced offices, we do not have energy consumption data, so we use estimates using our regional energy data and scale by office area. Our serviced offices contribute <2% of our global office footprint by sqm.

First Sentier Investors is a tenant of multi-tenant buildings and contracts directly for renewable electricity wherever possible. Where we do not have operational control to procure our electricity directly, we purchase RECs within the same energy market boundary. Steam heating is limited to our New York office.

We use dual reporting for our electricity emissions. A location-based method reflects the average emissions intensity of grids on which energy consumption occurs (using country grid-average emission factor data).

A market-based method reflects emissions from electricity that the company has purposefully chosen. This takes into account our procurement of renewable electricity. It derives emission factors from contractual instruments, which include any type of contract between two parties for the sale and purchase of energy bundled with attributes about the energy generation, or for unbundled attribute claims.

Our Scope 3 emissions arise from our material upstream activities. Our business-travel related emissions increased slightly compared to prior years. As a global business, we recognise the need to connect in person with our clients, investee companies and colleagues, and we are continuing to monitor the impacts of our business travel and review our activities and travel policies to help manage emissions. Where available, we use actual data for Scope 3. However, where data availability is limited, we apply estimation models to extrapolate this across our global footprint. Our global purchased goods and services emissions currently utilise a spend-based methodology.

For detailed definitions on our emissions calculation methodology, please see the Appendix of the 2024 Corporate Sustainability Report.