Our sustainability
commitments and achievements

Toitū’s technical experts are hard at work preparing our FY25 climate and impact reporting. Our reporting period follows the financial year (July 2024 – June 2025).

Right now, we’re collating our climate reporting documents ahead of the regular audit taking place. As a proud signatory of the Climate Leaders Coalition, we aim to have our climate reporting completed in line with signatory requirements. Our full Impact Report is then collated and shared after our climate reporting is completed.

In the meantime, here’s a quick snapshot of our collective impact:

• 918 clients supported, with 779 on our Climate Impact and Enviromark programmes
• 1,005 certifications issued across Climate Impact, Enviromark, and non-programme
• 60.2 million tonnes CO₂e certified or verified during FY25
• 108,000 tonnes of high-quality offsets were cancelled by our clients

Read on for our FY24 Impact report.

Our vision is for all organisations to have a net positive impact on the environment. Our purpose is to help organisations shift their impact on the climate and environment from negative to positive, at pace. Our mission is simple: build a better future.

At Toitū, we support New Zealand business leaders facing increasing pressure to move beyond compliance and shift their focus to proactive climate strategies that secure growth.

Climate action today is more than an ethical priority - it’s a business decision with tangible, strategic payoffs. As New Zealand’s leading provider of internationally accredited climate and environmental certifications, we’re helping businesses position themselves for success.

Our values

We hold the standard

We strive for excellence: we are experts in our field, dedicated to science and best practice. We hold New Zealand businesses to science-aligned goals and international best practices. We strive to expand our own and others’ mana, wisdom and knowledge.

We shape the future

We apply an intergenerational lens: we are standard bearers at the heart of the climate economy. We encourage sustainable practices that prioritise long-term stability in the economy, society and environment. We shape the future with simplicity, scale, accessibility and ease, making our expertise and influence available to all.

We are better together

We value connection and relationships: we honor the interconnectedness of all things, respecting the land, past, present, and future generations, and diverse cultures. By exploring the most effective ways of working together, we continuously innovate and achieve positive results nationally.

Celebrating our members’ achievements.

Our members are creating better businesses through the Toitū certification programmes. These three organisations have done some exceptional work in decarbonisation and environmental management.

Silver Fern Farms

Silver Fern Farms (SFF) is New Zealand’s largest red meat producer and exports to 60 countries. SFF has been Toitū Carbon Reduce certified for over 5 years now and has expanded its membership to include an environmental management system (EMS) for their 14 processing sites – which saw them earning the Enviromark Diamond certification with Toitū.

SFF launched Net Carbon Zero Angus Beef in New Zealand and the United States in 2021. This allows them to pay farmers directly for the carbon that their farms are sequestering, which encourages greater investment by farmers to plant and protect native wetlands. This is critical given the erasure of over 90% of the country’s wetlands, and with it much of the rare biodiversity restricted to these habitats. SFF are committed to stop using coal completely by 2030.

Ecotricity

Ecotricity was established to provide 100% renewable energy from hydro, solar and wind projects. They achieved Toitū Net Carbon Zero certification 10 years ago, and have recently elevated their climate action to become Toitū Climate Positive. Electricity is a major source of carbon emissions in New Zealand, which inspired Ecotricity to become the only provider of Toitū Climate Positive certified electricity. They now measure and offset all cradle-to-grave lifecycle emissions, including construction items for their renewable plants.

Ecotricity has increased their focus on advocacy and employee engagement, including providing electric vehicle (EV) buyers’ guides, and EV and electric bike subsidies for employees to invest in low carbon transport.

Ecostore

Ecostore exists for the health of their customers and the planet. They have been Toitū net carbonzero certified and Toitū enviromark diamond certified for over 13 years. They have reduced their emissions by changing from forklifts powered by LPG to investing in electric forklifts, and changing their internal processes to be as energy efficient as possible.
Ecostore is also leading the refill model in New Zealand, with refill stations at many supermarkets to reduce plastic waste. Toitū certification has helped them measure emissions and identify opportunities to innovate their processes and reduce emissions.

Toitū's international standards legacy

As a certifying body, Toitū believes independent verification from leading international institutions is essential to building stakeholder trust. This external validation ensures we uphold the highest standards in New Zealand for credible climate action. From carbon assurance to carbon credit retirement, the integrity we bring to our core services is rigorously checked and endorsed by recognised institutions — making our carbon certifications not only recognised, but also trusted in international markets.

Learn more about our commitment to independence on our Impartiality page.

It’s the independent validation we receive as a B Corp-certified organisation and a signatory of the Climate Leaders Coalition that underpins our annual impact reporting.

Improving our B Corp score

Being a B Corp organisation supports our ambition for environmental regeneration and economic sustainability. We are proud to have been a B Corp since 2019, most recently recertified in 2022 . The work we have put in since the initial certification has really paid off – our score increased from 82 to 106.8 in our 2022 audit. The score increased across all five impact areas: governance, workers, community, environment and customers.

Toitū is currently reviewing the enhanced B Corp framework, which was released in mid-2025. We expect to recertify under the new B Corp standard, and this will likely extend our recertification timeline.

Governance

• We updated our company constitution to show that we: consider all stakeholders when making decisions, commit to running our business for good, and consider impact on the environment and society over profit.

Workers

• We conducted a pay equity analysis to identify gender and ethnicity pay gaps.
• We increased our diversity, equity and inclusion training offerings to our people.

Community

• We’ve continued to support employee volunteer hours.

Environment

• We continued to progress against our science-based targets for our greenhouse gas emissions.
• Our primary impact business model, recognised by B Corp, is helping clients to improve their impact on the environment and society through our work.
• A second impact business model, relating to the environmental education we provide, has been recognised.

Clients

• We recertified our impact business model, recognising the results members achieve in our programmes.

Improving our emissions profile

We are a signatory of the Climate Leaders Coalition and we seek to be equivalent to Toitū Net Carbon Zero. We measure our carbon emissions annually and have the results independently verified, alongside our climate performance targets and achievements. We purchase and cancel a selection of high-integrity carbon credits to compensate for operational emissions we have yet to reduce.

As the owner and operator of the Toitū Net Carbon Zero certification programme, we do not claim to be certified, however, we meet all the same requirements as our certified clients.

• We continue to include emissions from purchased goods and services and focus on our value chain activities.
• Air travel emissions continue to increase post-COVID but remain lower than our starting point in 2016.
• We are on track to meet our 2030 targets.

We are currently well on track to achieve our 2030 targets, with a 62% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions for this period compared to base year, and a 63% reduction for business travel compared to base year. Our emissions profile has increased (again) in FY24 compared to the previous period as our operations continue to scale up.

Toitū’s total emissions for FY23/24 were 271.82 tCO2e. You can read our Climate Performance Summary for a good overview, or you can deep dive into our Carbon Inventory Management Report here.

Emissions Comparison Table, FY 2022-2024

Our significant sources

We saw a 21 tonne increase in purchased goods and services emissions due to higher spending. Due to resource constraints, we have not yet shifted toward more specific data and quantification methods to improve our calculation accuracy.

Another source which increased is business travel, increasing by nearly 7 tonnes. We anticipate that the travel emissions will fluctuate in the next few periods as the business grows, but remain focused on our 2030 target.

Our purchased electricity emissions also increased this year, breaking a year-on-year reduction trend. This was due to moving offices in Wellington where the building has a lower occupancy.

Emissions reduction targets

We are committed to managing and reducing our emissions in line with our Toitū Net Carbon Zero programme requirements. We have validated near-term targets under the Science Based Targets initiative. Our current near-term targets are:

• Absolute reduction of Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 74% by 2030
• Absolute reduction of Scope 3 business travel (including employee commuting) by 57% by 2030.

Due to increasing the scope of our emissions measurement, we plan to update our near-term Scope 3 targets and have these revalidated by the Science Based Targets initiative. As part of the process, we will reassess our plans and targets to see how the business transformation will affect our emissions ‘curve’ – the point at which emissions will peak and start declining.

For the first time, we have set long-term targets for a 90% emissions reduction. We believe we can do this for Scope 1 and 2 by 2040, and have set a target of 2050 for Scope 3. Our next step will be to work through the formal validation of these targets and related action plans.

Emissions reporting archive

For essential details of our inventory, reduction efforts and compensation, please see the following annual climate performance summaries. Our previous third-party verification reports and emissions inventory reports are available on request, as is historical documentation prior to our 2016-17 base year.

• Annual statement 2023 to 2024
• Annual statement 2022 to 2023
• Annual statement 2021 to 2022
• Annual statement 2020 to 2021
• Annual statement 2019 to 2020
• Annual statement 2018 to 2019
• Annual statement 2017 to 2018
• Annual statement 2016 to 2017

Overview

What are climate-related risks and opportunities?

Climate change affects all of us, and the impacts will only intensify as global heating continues. Climate-related risks are those that arise from the impacts of a warming climate, as well as those related to the human responses to climate change and our transition responses. Risk assessments aim to understand the nature and level of climate change related risks, as well as opportunities. The assessment process will guide your organisation in how to reduce and respond to these risks, but if done thoughtfully can also highlight opportunities to build resilient operations, new revenue streams, and robust strategies for decades to come.

Understanding climate risk and opportunities enables an organisation to prepare mitigation strategies and identify business opportunities. The process to assess potential scenarios, determine the risks and opportunities ahead, and plan how to manage them will ensure an organisation is much more resilient in years to come. The assessments support risk prioritisation, which can then drive targeted action and investment in adaptation.

Understanding your climate risks and opportunities demonstrates company foresight and resilience to stakeholders and builds your organisation’s brand as a climate leader.

Climate scenarios

Climate change scenarios are a way of describing possible future changes to climate variables and hazards. There are a range of future climate scenarios based on the level of global heating that occurs. The scenarios help guide thinking on the severity and likelihood of impacts on operations, facilities, value chains and communities.

Toitū’s scenario-based approach for this process uses guidance developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); we focused on three key scenarios: orderly, disorderly and hot-house world.

Orderly:
This is our best-case scenario based on a very stringent pathway and likely limits climate heating to around 1.5C. In this scenario, carbon dioxide emissions decline from 2020, reaching zero by 2100, with methane reducing in half; this scenario also requires negative emissions through removals, such as forest-based sequestration.

Disorderly:
This is considered an intermediate scenario, with projected temperature rise of 2 or 2.5C. While it is the most probable scenario, it does depend on very sharp and stringent decarbonisation enacted in the 2030s. In this scenario, carbon dioxide emissions decline from 2045, reaching half (compared to 2050) by 2100, with methane reducing by about 25% compared to projected 2040 levels; this scenario also requires negative emissions through removals, such as forest-based sequestration.

Hot House World:
This is taken as our worst-case scenario, resulting in climate heating of 3 or 4C. This scenario would see minimal change to current behaviour and practices, and thus emissions continue to rise throughout the 21st century.

Assessment

You can view a summary of our FY23-24 Climate-Related Risks and Opportunities Assessment below. Next year, we plan to undertake work on a response plan.

Enhancing employee wellbeing

If our employees are thriving, then our business will also thrive.

Our goal is to create a workplace that fosters a sense of wellbeing for our employees, and an environment that upholds a sense of mana and personal integrity. We want employees to feel supported and trusted, and to have a sense of fulfilment and purpose. The benefits of this will carry through to our wider relationships with clients, and enable us to do the best we can to help organisations have a net positive impact on the environment.

Our wellbeing pillars:

• Our purpose – Toitū – Be actively sustaining
• Breathe out – Hāputa – Be in action
• Breathe in – Hāunu – Be in relationship
• Held breath – Hāpupuri – Be in balance

Our wellbeing journey

We have rolled out several initiatives and held events that support our vision for a happy, healthy and thriving workforce. These initiatives support each of our four pillars of wellbeing.

Toitū – Our purpose – Actively sustain

We created a guide that outlines our unique, Toitū-specific approach to wellbeing. We provided an introductory session to share the guide and explain the processes for addressing any wellbeing issues that may arise in the workplace.

Breathe out – Hāputa – Be in action

As part of our pillar ‘Hāputa – Be in action’, we gave a wellbeing koha to each employee, we are redesigning our onboarding processes to make the transition to working at Toitū smoother.

Breathe in – Hāunu – Be in relationship

For this pillar, we held team building events such as scavenger hunts. We also focused on cultural celebrations with Matariki workshops – which were rated highly in employee feedback. We started monthly group walks for Toitū employees, as well as Coffee Kōrero, where two employees from different parts of the business are matched to connect and learn from one another.

Held Breath – Hāpupuri – Be in balance

We moved to a new Employee Assistance Provider, Clearhead, which offers online and in-person services. They also hold monthly wellness webinars and provide an app for mental health support, resources and self-assessment linked to preferred learning styles for all employees and contractors. We also ran emotional culture workshops, offered a 12-week mindfulness programme series, and celebrated several ‘weeks’, such as Mental Health Awareness Week, to bring awareness to issues surrounding mental health and wellbeing.

In addition, we provide 22 days of annual leave, plus three additional ‘Toitū’ days to be taken between the Christmas and New Year period, per year for all employees, and the office closed for three weeks over the summer holidays to support active wellbeing at the end of the busy year.