About Oxygen
Oxygen Advisors are Virtual CFO's - providing executive level support to start-up and high growth companies. They work with ambitious and exciting companies, using their experience and expertise to help them become the stars of tomorrow.
Oxygen is not here to do a business’ year end accounts just to please the tax man (although we do that too). They are here to help you understand how your business is actually doing, provide the financial information business leaders need to make real time decisions, and let your team focus on building the company - not worrying about compliance.
The NZ based business has recently expanded to Australia with the co-CEO Chris Morgan moving to and establishing an office there.
Challenges
The Oxygen directors had decided that sustainability was important to them and a priority for the business and wanted to develop and progress a strategy. On reflection they realised they were in a position to be leaders in this space, given Oxygen's position as trusted advisors in the SaaS ecosystem. They decided to lead the way and in doing so hoped to bring it to clients’ attention and inspire them on their own journey.
Oxygen wanted to inspire others too, ”ultimately, our goal is to learn more about what we can do as a small NZ business, and to influence other companies who might be interested in following suit but are not sure where to begin” explained Chris Morgan.
The company had started off by developing an overall sustainability strategy and set a clear strategy with annual goals. Oxygen were looking for ways to progress these objectives. A critical first step was measuring their firm’s firm’s carbon footprint to get a baseline.
They were also looking for tangible, concrete actions that would make a real difference and they could demonstrate their commitment to sustainability to engage clients and their own team.
They needed a solution that would support their sustainability goals and allow them to visibly show clients the values and actions behind their environmental efforts. As out-sourced CFOs they were interested in clear metrics and things they could track.
As service providers to a growing stable of clients they were time-poor and needed something which did not get in the way or distract from their important day-to-day cilent work.
”Before using CarbonInvoice, managing our carbon footprint felt overwhelming and time-consuming” says Chris Morgan.
CarbonInvoice as the right solution
Quick and easy set up
Chris continues, “The [CarbonInvoice] platform changed that instantly – it’s user-friendly, quick to set up, and provides us with clear insights into our environmental impact. We love knowing we’re making a real difference without the hassle of complicated calculations.”
Oxygen Advisors integrated CarbonInvoice into their operations, allowing them to seamlessly track their carbon impact through the direct integration with their Xero accounting software.
CarbonInvoice provides content
Access to the CarbonInvoice Sharing Library has helped them communicate their efforts by: automatic sharing on every client invoice showing the trees planted for every project; evidence of real progress progressing their sustainability strategy in years one FY23 and two FY24; and social content for their external marketing efforts. Oxygen also saw invitations to team Planting Action Days to put trees in the ground.
Automatically funding native trees
Since 14 December 2022 Oxygen have partnered with CarbonInvoice, they have planted over 650 native trees - check out their progress here.
How Oxygen is benefiting
The business impact of CarbonInvoice for Oxygen has been broad and tangible touching strategy, clients and team.
Progressing their sustainability strategy by being able to measure and track their carbon footprint, as well as plant native trees locally has seen them progress both FY23 and FY24’s goals.
Feedback from clients has been positive with proactive comments suggesting Oxygen’s clients are engaged and inspired by the action:
”Nice work on this addition to your service. It is appreciated. While we’re an environmentally conscious business we’re recognising the need to be more intentional about what we’re doing to measure and explore opportunities to offset our impact. As a small team it’s just one more thing to do but a solution like Carbon Invoice does look interesting."
Oxygen’s team have been impressed with the company’s action with employees registering for local Planting Action Days to get involved in and feel connected to the company’s Oxygen and the wider movement.
Importantly, there has been no added overhead or change to Oxygen’s processes. ”It’s given us a clear, straightforward way to take action and communicate our progress, all while supporting local tree planting initiatives” says Chris.
