Main navigation About us History Board of Directors Investors Contact FOCUSRITE GROUP’S ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY PLAN Leading the industry and setting standards for peers to emulate. As an equipment manufacturer with a worldwide reach, we are aware that our very existence contributes to factors affecting climate change. Addressing climate change requires rapid and urgent action across all sectors of society, and we appreciate the need to respond quickly to the ecological emergency if we are to play our part in limiting global warming. As a global leader in the audio industry, environmental sustainability is a major opportunity for us to demonstrate climate leadership and values, define good environmental practice, and benefit from an opportunity to meaningfully engage with our staff, customers, and the wider audio community. Our Ongoing Commitment We are serious about building the long-term foundations for progress. Since 2018, our cross-departmental Green Team has been meeting regularly and making improvements to lessen the company’s environmental impact. Starting as a grassroots movement by passionate staff members, the Green Team has grown to include representatives from across the business, including company Directors, who are intent on making a difference. This team has so far been responsible for a combination of short-term wins within our offices, and medium-term achievements by driving efficiencies within our logistics network. Looking long-term, the team is already starting to influence the product design process in a positive way. To demonstrate our ongoing commitment, in 2021 we formalised our focus on sustainability by appointing Andy Land, leader of the Green Team for more than two years, to the new Head of Sustainability position. Andy’s remit will be to lead Environmental strategy across the Focusrite Group, as we build our timeline towards a low greenhouse gas emissions future and align with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We are joining the growing community of leaders committed to taking bold, strategic action on climate change aligned to the United Nations Paris Agreement, the international framework for “limiting global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels”. We are committed to creating and fostering a sustainable ethos — demonstrating and amplifying good practice while inspiring our employees, customers, and partners to action. Our Approach Our approach to environmental sustainability extends to our complete operation, aiming to embed us within the circular economy, requiring collaboration with the entirety of our value chain and beyond. In the future, we look forward to leading and educating the broader music technology sector and setting the standard for good sustainable practice within our industry. We recognise this is a rapidly evolving field with new research and technology breakthroughs a regular occurrence. By working with industry-leading consultants, including Julie’s Bicycle, a London-based charity that supports the creative industry to act on climate change and environmental sustainability, we have developed this high-level, simple to digest approach that can be applied to any initiative, while also remaining relevant for the future. Designing Sustainably Much of our impact lies with the products we make, so we are embedding sustainable design principles into our design process. As a manufacturer, we have a responsibility to make high-quality products that stand the test of time, and not become redundant after a few years. Our products have always been robust and long lasting, but to further increase our commitment to making reliable and long-lasting products, we have already extended our standard two-year warranty to three years across the entire Focusrite, Focusrite Pro and Novation product portfolio, which equals Optimal Audio’s three-year warranty. ADAM Audio and Martin Audio also offer up to five years warranty, raising the requirement for design and reduces wastage, which is not only a plus for the planet, but a great benefit to our customers. As up to 90% of a product’s environmental impact is locked in during design, we established a set of operating procedures and best practices for creating sustainable products and are incorporating them into our design process. These are being applied to all new products, maximising sustainability long before production and is an area of focus we will be continually refining. Future Thinking Our very existence means we have an environmental footprint, so deepening our understanding of this impact is our top priority. There is growing momentum within society demanding action on climate change. Backed up by science, supported by our customers, and increasingly being legislated for by governments around the world, we have a responsibility to respond. This starts by analysing in detail and verifying externally, the scope of our emissions. In 2019 we conducted our first survey of our head office’s energy consumption, and in 2020 we reported our Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions for the first time (covering our offices, energy consumption and company vehicles); a process we will repeat annually. Over time as our experience grows this will include Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions (logistics, travel and manufacturing among other items), as well as an assessment of how climate change will affect Focusrite brands, and how we will be tackling some of the local effects. Looking beyond greenhouse gas emissions, we view the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as an essential framework to ensure we commit to long term success for the planet and society. Each Sustainability initiative undertaken at Focusrite will be reviewed for which goals we are contributing towards and will form a big part of our reporting framework moving forwards. To see more information about our environmental footprint, click here to see our annual report. 2021 © Focusrite Plc. All rights reserved.