Our annual Carbon Report is one of the tools we use to help measure the environmental impact of our practice. Whilst keeping an eye on the footprint of the projects we design, we make sure not to overlook what enables the design process itself - our own operations. We analyse our journey towards our 2030 target each year and try to understand whether we are on track and how we can improve.

The carbon report is created and calculated by the Orms Sustainability Team internally, ensuring transparency and full understanding of the business processes. It was later third-party verified by Tunley Environmental.

Our Scope 1 & 2 emissions came to 15.74 tCO2e in 2025 (calculated using the location-based methodology) - a 36% drop from our 2019 baseline. We're pleased with this trajectory, which reflects two parallel wins: a 64% cut in fossil fuel use and a steady decline in electricity consumption, even as the practice continued to grow. Much of this progress ties back to one major change: our new home at 160 Old Street.

First year in the New Office

2025 marks our first full year in our Home from Home. In addition to enjoying our new space - which we designed ourselves, thinking through every detail - we can also see how our move is impacting our carbon numbers. One interesting finding is that our emissions have become far more stable across the year - we're no longer seeing the seasonal swings between summer and winter that used to show up in our data. Even more encouraging, overall emissions are markedly lower in our new space, with the Q3 to Q4 comparison across 2024/25 confirming that reductions are continuing.

Improving our methodology

Each year we try new ways of improving the data. We compared distance-based and spend-based methods for calculating air and rail emissions this year, and found spend-based factors overestimated results by a factor of three. This has reinforced our commitment to phasing out spend-based factors in favour of more accurate, activity-based data.

Our carbon removal strategy

We continue our partnership with Ecologi, which began in 2024, a certified B Corp that is science-led and impact-driven. They specialise in helping companies of varying scales purchase credits from vetted carbon removal projects in the UK and worldwide.

In our carbon removal strategy, we are committed to the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting and have purchased 16t Cat V removals to match our scope 1 & 2 impact. For 2025, we have been able to match more of our footprint with carbon removals and purchase a further 46 tonnes of Cat IV removals (Scope 3.3–3.7) at £42 per tonne. We're aiming to steadily increase the share of our footprint covered by purchased removals in the years ahead.

We remain committed to building on this momentum through 2026 and beyond - tightening our methodology, engaging our supply chain, and pushing further towards our 2030 target. We recognise that the route to carbon reduction matters as much as the targets themselves. We will continue to communicate our progress transparently.