Our sustainability goal

Sustainability at Betabit

We feel a clear responsibility toward new generations and align ourselves with international frameworks such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For us, this means working step by step toward becoming as CO₂ neutral as possible, with measures that truly have an effect and that we can maintain over time. We focus primarily on our scope 1 and 2 emissions: the emissions directly linked to our own operations and the energy we purchase.

Where is our impact?

Our 2020 baseline measurement showed that roughly 85% of our CO₂ emissions come from mobility and about 15% from housing. That gives us focus when we talk about sustainability at Betabit, we are primarily talking about how we travel and how we use our offices.

Mobility

The greatest impact lies in our mobility. That is why our policy focuses on two things: reducing unnecessary travel, partly through hybrid working (at home, with the client and at the office), and increasingly greening our company car fleet with a growing share of electric vehicles. Under the motto “Nieuwe Balans,” we introduced new and more sustainable work and travel agreements with clients in 2021. In the first year alone, this resulted in a reduction of roughly 78,000 kg of CO₂. This behavioural shift less and smarter travel is now a structural part of how we collaborate.

In parallel, we are electrifying our fleet. The availability of affordable electric models and charging infrastructure continues to grow, and we adjust our leasing policy accordingly. Lease category 3 is now fully electric. All cars in this category run on electricity. In lease category 2, about one third of cars are electric, and that share is still growing. Only in lease category 1 is a fully electric option not yet realistic due to current market availability, so a petrol option remains possible for now. As a result, the total share of electric cars in our fleet has grown from 4 percent to nearly 50 percent of all lease vehicles. Our proactive policy is working.

Housing

Our housing accounts for roughly 15 percent of our CO₂ footprint. We have multiple offices in the Netherlands, with different landlords and long-term contracts. This limits what we can enforce directly, but it does not mean we stand still. We critically assessed how many square meters we truly need, which led us to reduce from six to four offices in 2024. That decision has a direct impact on energy use and emissions.

With our new headquarters in Rotterdam, we take another step in the right direction, although fully CO₂ neutral housing is not yet feasible. In future relocations and contract renewals, the sustainability performance of buildings will play an increasingly important role in our decision making.

Solar panels

In October 2023, Betabit and our sister company YieldDD entered into an agreement with one of the largest sports clubs in the Netherlands: Hockey Club Rotterdam (HCR). Together, we enabled the installation of 300 solar panels on the clubhouse roof. At the time, the intention was that this would supply us with net returned electricity backed by Guarantees of Origin (GvOs) for the following five years. This was expected to generate about 60,000 kWh or 60 GvOs per year, and in the first year it did. Due to grid congestion, we unfortunately no longer achieve these values. Even so, this investment represents a substantial contribution to sustainable energy generation in our own region. With this experience, we are now exploring new opportunities for the future.

Microsoft Azure

Our code and increasingly our AI applications run on Microsoft Azure, in Microsoft’s data centers. Microsoft has ambitious climate plans and is investing heavily in cleaner energy and more efficient data centers. The direction is clear: the greener Microsoft becomes, the greener the infrastructure beneath our work becomes.

Read more about Microsoft’s sustainability plans in: 'Microsoft will be carbon negative in 2030'.