Environment

Careers Choices Dewis Gyrfa (CCDG) recognises that its wide range of activities and services have both a positive and negative impact on the environment and wish to manage and minimise these wherever possible.

Environmental report

Our environmental strategy is underpinned by our objective to achieve the Welsh Government’s target of a carbon net zero public sector by 2030. The guidance places a strong emphasis on:

• Procurement decarbonisation
• Estate energy reduction
• Low carbon transport 
• Renewable energy generation 

Our overarching environmental principles are detailed within our Environmental Policy and are implemented and monitored using an environment management system which is audited annually. We maintained the UKAS-accredited Green Dragon Environmental Standard Level 4 in this financial year.

How we manage the process

We are committed to continually improving how we reduce our environmental impact. We have established two committees which have oversight of the monitoring and reporting requirements within our governance structure. The Premises and Environment Group, chaired by our Chief Executive, has responsibility for setting the strategic direction and reviewing progress against targets. The facilities team is responsible for overseeing the auditing and production of monitoring data and for ensuring the strategic decisions for the year are implemented.

Carbon footprint

We are working to reduce our carbon footprint as much as possible by 2030, following guidance published by the Welsh Government.

A key part of our strategy is reducing the size of our office estate and exploring opportunities to share premises with partners while continuing to provide local services. We aim to create modern, low-carbon workplaces that support hybrid working and make the best use of technology. To meet the requirements of the National strategy ‘Prosperity for All’ we will ensure our estates portfolio address the needs of the community that we operate

To help reduce our carbon emissions, we will continue to improve our environmental management systems and make better use of monitoring data to set targets and track progress each year.

The environment data in the table has been collected from the 24 offices that are fully under our control and where we receive invoices directly from the energy supplier, or detailed invoices from the landlord where we are not on shared supply. Eleven of these offices have gas central heating installed. It is our intention to remove gas from our estate by 2029. In addition to the reporting of environment data included in this report we also report annually on additional environment information to the Welsh Government.

This report includes an estimated kgCO2 emissions for homeworking (57,613 this reporting year compared to 103,884 in the previous year), travel to work mileage (315,239 compared to 247,994 in the previous year) and supply chain emissions (677,694 compared to 1,059,682 in the previous year’s report).

The above figures represent the usage in energy across Careers Wales business. In 2025 to 2026 all our offices were fully operational and there was an increase in staff working from an office, however, we continue to operate a hybrid working model. During the year we refurbished our Barry office installing energy efficient windows and removed the gas supply from our Neath Office. We will continue to invest to improve our overall office environmental performance by removing gas boilers and undertaking energy efficiency measures across the whole estate and where feasible install solar energy.

In the financial year ahead, we are planning to further reduce our estate portfolio by discontinuing leases and we are in the process of selling offices which no longer meet our needs. We will also be placing greater emphasis on reducing our carbon footprint relating to our supply chain by working closely with our suppliers to better understand what proportion of their actual emissions can be allocated to our carbon emission calculations. All our tenders include questions on carbon reduction plans and environmental sustainability.

Environmental Policy