IT was 23% of their footprint. Growth was about to make it worse.
A major UK parking operator needed to hit net zero by 2040 while adding new sites, digital payments, sensors and AI. Junxion, a fractional strategy partner for purpose-led leaders and their teams, was leading their sustainability strategy and brought me in for the technical piece.
Every new site added carbon. The plan was more sites.
When the business measured its carbon footprint properly, 23% of it sat in IT and digital. The board and external stakeholders raised it. The CTO was left holding a question nobody could answer: how do you grow the business without growing that number?
Growth was the whole plan. New sites, new digital payment journeys, more sensors, more cameras, more data, a move from on-premise servers to the cloud, and more AI. Every one of those adds carbon. The target was net zero by 2040.
Junxion were leading the wider sustainability strategy and doing it well, supporting implementation of that strategy and the client’s decarbonisation efforts. What the project needed next was someone who had run IT at scale and knew where the carbon hides in it. That’s where I came in.
A net zero promise the tech would break.
The CTO needed to show real reductions in the IT footprint, and to understand the levers available while the business moved to the cloud and started using AI. Without a plan, every year of growth would push net zero 2040 further away, the cloud migration would lock in avoidable emissions and costs, and the board would keep asking a question the IT team couldn’t answer.
One document. Two jobs.
In three days, I wrote a two-part document and created the board presentation that got the work and the budget approved.
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The strategy
Written for the IT and senior leadership team. It set the direction for five years: the seven areas where IT creates carbon, a phased roadmap, guardrails for the cloud migration, and the financial business case built on avoided costs.
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The playbook
Written for everyone else. The same principles turned into checklists and day-to-day practice, with sections for the CTO and IT leads, developers, HR and internal communications.
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The board deck
The presentation the CTO used to take the whole plan to the board.
The strategy covered websites and apps, data storage, architecture, software, hardware, policies, governance and employee engagement. Every area came with checklists and day-to-day practice attached.
Board-ready in three days.
The business went from knowing the size of the problem to knowing exactly what to do about it. A five-year strategy, a clear roadmap, guardrails for the cloud migration, contractual levers for getting emissions data out of IT vendors, and a financial case built on avoided costs. The playbook turned it into daily practice for every team, so the strategy doesn’t sit on a shelf.
The technical depth a strategy team rightly borrows.
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I've run technology at scale, so I know where the carbon hides: architecture, data storage, procurement, developer practice.
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I could build the financial business case and the vendor negotiating position for emissions data, not just the ambition.
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I could write for every audience at once: the board, the IT leads, the developers, and the people running internal comms.
Courtney took the time at the outset of the project to really understand our needs and the important details. From there she worked incredibly efficiently, completing the entire project work in three days. She also took the time throughout the project to check in, share her thinking, and coach myself and the client through a complex subject matter, sharing her knowledge with candour and generosity. The final product was very well received by the client and has helped us to make tangible steps forward on a difficult area of work.
Every company has an IT footprint. The hard part is growing the business, the digitisation and the AI without growing the footprint. I brought the technical depth, the sustainability knowledge and the stakeholder skills to map the path in three days.
