How Olive & Goose Is Approaching Sustainability
At Olive & Goose, we spend a lot of time helping organizations build systems, processes, and programs that are intentional, scalable, and built to last. We believe the same discipline should apply to how we run our own business.
This year, we completed a formal carbon footprint assessment in partnership with RyeStrategy, a carbon accounting and climate advisory firm, and earned the RyeStrategy Level 1 Emissions Reduction Program badge. For us, this wasn’t about checking a box or making a public commitment before understanding the work involved. It was about establishing a baseline, understanding our impact, and making decisions based on data rather than assumptions.
This post shares what we learned, why we started this work, and how we’re thinking about the road ahead.
Our Business Model Shapes Our Footprint
Since day one, Olive & Goose has operated as a fully remote company. Our team works across time zones and alongside clients around the world without a central office. That model was designed to prioritize flexibility, access to talent, and proximity to our clients rather than geography.
It also influences our environmental footprint.
Without a physical office, our direct operational emissions are minimal. Instead, most of our impact comes from activities common to modern consulting firms: the software and cloud services we use, business travel, and the day-to-day realities of remote work.
One of the most valuable outcomes of the assessment process was gaining a clearer understanding of where our emissions actually originate. Having that visibility helps ensure we’re focusing our efforts in the right places.
What We Learned
The assessment showed that software services represent the largest portion of our emissions footprint, followed by business travel. Business services and work-from-home activities account for a smaller share of the overall total.
None of these findings were particularly surprising. What was valuable was moving beyond assumptions and establishing a documented baseline. Sustainability efforts are difficult to prioritize or measure without understanding your starting point, and this assessment gives us a foundation to build from.
Why We Chose to Do This Now
Many of the organizations we work with are facing increasing pressure to report on sustainability metrics and demonstrate environmental accountability. Supplier disclosure requirements are becoming more common, and procurement teams are asking partners to provide greater transparency around their environmental practices.
As a consulting firm that helps clients improve visibility, governance, and accountability across their businesses, we felt it was important to hold ourselves to the same standard.
There is also a practical reason for doing this work. As sustainability reporting becomes more common across enterprise ecosystems, understanding our own footprint positions us to participate in those conversations with credibility and transparency.
Most importantly, we believe responsible businesses should understand the impact they have and be willing to share what they learn.
What Comes Next
Completing a baseline assessment is an important milestone, but it’s only a starting point.
Our focus now is understanding where meaningful reductions are possible and making informed decisions about where to prioritize effort. For a fully remote consulting firm, the opportunities may look different than they do for organizations with offices, facilities, or manufacturing operations. Areas such as travel practices, vendor selection, and software procurement are natural places for us to focus our attention.
We’ll continue to assess our footprint annually, measure our progress, and evaluate opportunities for improvement as our business grows.
Like any meaningful business initiative, this work is most effective when it’s approached as an ongoing practice rather than a one-time project.
Starting Before You Have All the Answers
One of the biggest lessons from this process is that you don’t need a perfect sustainability strategy to get started. You need a willingness to measure, learn, and improve over time.
Our assessment and Level 1 certification represent the first step in that journey. They provide a clearer picture of where we stand today and create a foundation for future progress.
We’ll continue to share updates as we learn more and refine our approach. Not because we have all the answers, but because transparency matters.
If your organization is exploring carbon accounting, supplier disclosure requirements, or sustainability reporting for the first time, we’d be happy to share our experience and lessons learned along the way.
