Building boxxe's credible Net Zero foundation - without building a large internal team

The Challenge

In the IT sector, carbon and ESG questions have moved firmly from the margins of a tender response to the heart of it. Customers, frameworks and procurement teams are scrutinising sustainability credentials, which is now shaping commercial outcomes.

As a long-standing public sector supplier, boxxe has to meet Procurement Policy Note 006 requirements to bid on any contract above £5 million. This means publicly disclosing a Net Zero commitment alongside a credible Carbon Reduction Plan. boxxe had already made that commitment public, but the piece it had not yet completed was the corporate carbon assessment - a full Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory to give their net zero target a defensible foundation.

Layered on top of all of this was a busy UK regulatory agenda. SECR and the Climate-related Financial Disclosure regime carry their own data requirements, deadlines and disclosure formats. Staying on top of every strand needed external specialist capacity that could be relied on year-round.

boxxe came to PNZ Advisory on the back of a recommendation from peers in the IT sector. The Head of ESG had a clear sense of what they were looking for: support with a full corporate carbon assessment, preparation for the incoming Climate-related Financial Disclosure regime, and ESG materiality work.

Acting on sustainability was non-negotiable given the regulatory and procurement pressure already in play, but the choice of PNZ Advisory specifically was a deliberate one. boxxe wanted a partner with the sector credibility and appreciated PNZ’s flexible delivery proposal to match the way it actually wanted to work, not just any provider that could fulfil a compliance need.

The Opportunity

In a competitive sector, the businesses that get sustainability right are starting to pull ahead. Customers are using ESG credentials to differentiate between otherwise comparable suppliers, and a thin Net Zero story is becoming a commercial liability rather than just a missed opportunity.

For boxxe, that made the corporate carbon assessment more than a compliance task. It was the foundation everything else depended on: a credible PPN 006 disclosure, a defensible Net Zero strategy, and the ability to answer customer ESG questionnaires with confidence. Starting it early, and doing it properly, was a chance to get ahead of where the market was heading rather than scramble to catch up later.

Without acting, the consequences would have built quickly. PPN 006 disclosures would have started to look thin against competitors investing more seriously in their carbon position, putting eligibility for major public-sector contracts at risk. The Climate-related Financial Disclosure regime was approaching regardless of whether boxxe was ready for it, creating real regulatory exposure.

PNZ Approach

The engagement was initially set up as a year-long advisory programme rather than a sequence of discrete projects. That structure matters: it gives boxxe’s Head of ESG ongoing specialist capacity to draw on as priorities shift through the year, and it means PNZ behaves more like an extension of the in-house function than a third-party consultancy. The expertise sits alongside the team rather than above it.

Our first task was to map out where boxxe’s emissions actually came from, across both its own operations and the entire value chain. From that scoping work, we delivered boxxe’s first full corporate carbon assessment, covering Scopes 1, 2 and 3 and giving the business the base year inventory it had been missing. Following this, PNZ Advisory ran a series of carbon reduction workshops with boxxe’s internal teams to identify specific, realistic measures to cut boxxe’s emissions. PNZ drew on these insights to develop a bespoke Net Zero Strategy for boxxe, built around actionable carbon reduction projects with genuine internal buy-in.

By the end of 2025, with the initial workstreams progressing, boxxe chose to extend the engagement into a second year, recognising that having PNZ Advisory available as an extension of the in-house ESG function was more valuable than scoping each new piece of work as a discrete project.

When the business acquired CAE Technology Services Ltd (CAE), the work expanded. We ran a parallel 2024 assessment for CAE so that boxxe’s base year could be properly recalculated under GHG Protocol guidance, and built out a re-baselining methodology that boxxe can now apply to future acquisitions without disrupting either the net zero pathway or the credibility of the headline numbers.

Day to day, the programme runs on a flexible day-bank. Rather than working through a fixed schedule of deliverables, boxxe directs PNZ’s time toward it’s priorities. The team boxxe draws on includes multiple Consultants and Senior Consultants, all essentially working as part of the in-house ESG function in practice if not in name.

The Solution

Approaching two years in, boxxe has the ESG and Net Zero infrastructure a growing IT business needs, and the dependable specialist capacity to keep building on it.

The cornerstone is the corporate carbon assessment itself: the first full Scope 1, 2 and 3 inventory boxxe has had, now covering boxxe Group, including CAE, on a comparable basis for FY2024 and FY2025. Sitting alongside that is a Net Zero strategy with an action tracker, breaking the public commitment down into specific reduction measures with named owners and reportable progress. The re-baselining methodology built during Year 2 means future acquisitions can be folded in without losing what is underneath.

Compliance support runs in parallel rather than as a separate workstream. SECR data and PPN 006 disclosures are produced each year as a matter of course, and a bespoke Compliance Tracker, refreshed every six months, gives boxxe a forward view of where its regulatory obligations are heading through to 2028. When the Climate-related Financial Disclosure approached in 2026, PNZ took on the hands-on reporting work directly, including a qualitative climate risk and opportunities assessment and a boxxe-specific climate scenario analysis, and delivered it on time as part of the ongoing programme.

Everything sits under one retained PNZ Advisory service rather than being parcelled out into separate contracts. That single-service structure keeps the cost predictable for boxxe, gives the Head of ESG a single relationship to manage rather than a fragmented set of advisers, and lets the team flex up and down as the year demands.

Commercially, the relationship is structured for the long term: a multi-year retained Advisory programme now into its second year, with the scope continuing to expand alongside boxxe’s regulatory and customer requirements. The Head of ESG remains the primary day-to-day contact, and the engagement is positioned to continue developing as the business scales and the sustainability agenda matures around it.

Impact Delivered

Sustainability Impact

The most visible shift is in what boxxe now has to point to. Where the business previously held a public Net Zero target without the underlying carbon assessment to back it up, it now has a defensible base year inventory across boxxe Group, an active Net Zero strategy with reduction measures attached to it, and a tracker the team can use to keep the work moving. The headline target now sits on top of an actual programme.

Commercially, the difference shows up in how boxxe can engage with its customers. ESG questionnaires get answered with verifiable numbers, PPN 006 disclosures sit on solid ground, and conversations with larger enterprise and public-sector customers about sustainability credentials are conversations boxxe can lead rather than scramble through. Every UK reporting obligation that has landed during the programme has been met on time, without pulling the in-house team away from running the business.

Carbon Impact

On the numbers themselves, boxxe now holds a quantified Scope 1, 2 and 3 position, giving the visibility needed to plan meaningful reductions and making it possible for boxxe to submit its emissions reduction targets for Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) verification.

boxxe is now equipped to understand its impacts across the entire value chain, drive meaningful reduction action, and track progress against its base year as it works towards net zero.