At Friend MTS, we take fighting piracy extremely seriously. This means not only pioneering, developing and implementing effective anti-piracy solutions but also recognising our social responsibility and environmental accountability to our customers, stakeholders and supply chain as we go about our day-to-day business.
We safeguard $60 billion of media rights and over 100 million apps and devices for world-leading brands in media, sports and entertainment. It won’t be a surprise to hear that protecting over 26,000 hours of content every day and over 5000 hours of live, linear and on-demand sports content every week involves the use of energy-intensive IT systems.
That’s why it is very gratifying to call out the progress we’ve already made to become carbon neutral, well ahead of the 2035 government target, and celebrate our first certificate of credit retirement from Carbon Neutral Britain.
Establishing our carbon footprint
Our journey to net zero started in 2023 by interrogating and measuring our 2022 data using the ISO 14064 family of standards and Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG). This includes accounting for emissions from assets we own or control, such as company vehicles and utilities we use to power our offices and facilities. It also refers to the emissions we generate ‘from cradle to gate’ across our entire business chain, including buying, using and end-of-life recycling of products from our suppliers. We now repeat this data-gathering process every year so we can pinpoint how our carbon emissions are changing over time as our business grows.
Our net zero pledge
We are committed to driving down carbon emissions by influencing our energy supply and usage, business travel, supply chain, employees’ commutes, physical facility footprint and our mindset as a business.
We are also partnering with other committed industry-leading offsetters, allowing us to gather transparent and robust high-quality carbon offsets verified by the leading global accreditation regulators. For example, we are fortunate to work with other like-minded organisations that are already well-advanced with their Net Zero plans, forming mutually beneficial partnerships to continue to drive down carbon emissions.
Carbon offsetting
To avoid any greenwashing, we approached several carbon offsetting organisations to validate our numbers and also offer credible projects in which to invest for carbon offsetting.
As a result, we are partnering with Carbon Neutral Britain, the UK’s leading carbon offsetting organisation whose projects align with UN Sustainable Development goals and are audited and approved via the United Nations CER, Verra, and Gold Standard Mechanisms. Using the three largest and most regulated carbon offsetting standards ensures the measurements of tonnes of CO2 we offset are accurate because they are verified by third parties, with public audits available for each project.
Carbon Neutral Britain selects carbon offsetting projects based on their direct and indirect impact around the world, including ‘secondary' benefits, such as helping to provide education, employment, clean water, and energy, or those projects which have a positive impact on the local wildlife and ecology.
Restoring wild meadows in the UK
This coming year, we’ve chosen to support the UK Woodland Fund in managing and restoring wild meadows in the UK. This offers numerous benefits, with a species-rich meadow offering a home for diverse insects, bumblebees, bats, hedgehogs, hares and birds, as well as providing natural flood management. In addition, each hectare of land can capture up to three tonnes of carbon.
Using less, recycling more
During 2024, we have undertaken several in-house projects to reduce our carbon footprint. A snapshot includes:
- Upgrading heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) control systems
- Upgrading to LED lighting
- Using solar reflective film on windows
- Installing additional insulation in offices
And with several other energy-saving projects already in motion, we are confident in our ability to drive our carbon emissions down further in 2025 and beyond. We project they will decrease in the years to 2033 by 27% from a 2023 baseline of 165 tCO2e to 120 tCO2e.
While discretion and not giving the game away are critical to fighting piracy, we think that’s a result definitely worth shouting about.
