VetPartners transforms sustainability reporting from burden to business asset for 550+ practices across 9 countries

Background

VetPartners was founded in 2015 by veterinarian and pet owner Jo Malone, starting with just three practices in the north of England. In collaboration with experienced veterinary professionals, Malone set out to create a caring group of practices with a welcoming, family feel.

Today, VetPartners has grown into a network of over 550 diverse practices, encompassing small animal, equine, farm, mixed, and referral specialties. More than 12,000 people are employed by VetPartners across nine countries: the UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The group has also diversified to include nursing schools, laboratories, and pet crematoriums – allowing VetPartners to give back to the profession while offering comprehensive services to clients and local communities.

From its inception, ethical and sustainable business development has been a key pillar of the company’s strategy. VetPartners’ leadership recognizes that responsibility to patients and clients goes hand in hand with protecting the environment.

The organization’s sustainability efforts go beyond creating accurate carbon footprints.
They are also driven by the need to comply with regulations such as CSRD across multiple countries, and shaped by investor, colleague and client expectations.

At the beginning of 2025, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) certified VetPartners’ ambitious Net Zero targets – validation that reflects the company’s serious commitment to climate action:

• Net Zero across Scopes 1, 2, and 3 by 2045

Interim targets:
• 59% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2034
• 67% reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2034
• Net Zero Scope 1 and 2 by 2040

Beyond carbon, VetPartners – in partnership with its investors – has set broader environmental goals such as to reduce waste volumes and increase recycling – a critical focus given the challenges inherent in managing clinical waste in the veterinary sector.

Challenge

As VetPartners scaled rapidly – more than tripling in size over five years to encompass over 500 veterinary practices across nine continental European countries – the company’s sustainability data management approach needed to develop.

What had worked for a UK-focused operation was no longer suitable for a complex, multi-country enterprise operating in different regulatory environments and currencies.

Previously, VetPartners’ sustainability team had relied on spreadsheets and an external consultancy for carbon footprinting. While the consultancy delivered valuable strategic support, the arrangement lacked the flexibility VetPartners needed as its ambitions grew.

“You can sometimes feel like you’re spending all your time looking at data and trying to do reporting rather than actually making things more sustainable – which is what you want to be doing,” explained Hannah James, Group Head of ESG at VetPartners.

Hannah’s team was dedicating enormous effort to group-level reporting, but found that they lacked time for the work that would deliver broader impact, including engaging with the passionate vets and vet nurses in practices who were eager to take action on sustainability.

The dispersed nature of VetPartners’ operations compounded the challenge. Data arrived in different formats from hundreds of small sites, making standardization and analysis time-consuming and error-prone. It was difficult or impossible to extract from the spreadsheets and consultancy reports the level of granular data which individual practice or country teams would request.

Meanwhile, VetPartners was facing a rapidly-evolving regulatory landscape. In particular, compliance with the European Union’s CSRD loomed on the horizon, requiring even more sophisticated data management capabilities.

Cost was another consideration. VetPartners faced paying separately for carbon footprinting services and CSRD reporting tools, with limited integration between them. The company decided it needed a solution that could consolidate these functions, provide the flexibility to incorporate specific product lifecycle data as it became available, bring carbon footprinting in-house for greater control and insight, and – critically – free up the sustainability team’s time to focus on driving real change across the organization rather than wrestling with data in spreadsheets.

As Hannah James put it, “spreadsheets just weren’t cutting it”.

Solution

VetPartners conducted a thorough tender process, evaluating multiple sustainability data management platforms. Sweep stood out as a comprehensive solution.

“Sweep seemed very strong across the board,” Hannah James noted. “With Sweep, we saw that we would have an all-in-one tool for carbon, CSRD reporting, stakeholder engagement and more. A lot of tools we looked at were strong in one particular area but lacking in others which we needed.”

This ability to consolidate both carbon footprinting and CSRD reporting via Sweep eliminates the need for multiple systems, and their associated costs.
Sweep’s European foundation also resonated with VetPartners’ expansion in nine countries across the continent.

Sweep’s easy ability to add users and share data collection questionnaires without extensive training addressed the challenges of VetPartners’ extensive multinational operations, with the platform’s user-friendly design supporting efficient stakeholder engagement across the 550+ practices.

Switching to Sweep means VetPartners can now bring carbon footprinting in-house, providing crucial control and flexibility.

“I always wanted to be able to bring carbon footprinting in-house eventually, because I think you can get better insights into what the data is telling you,” Hannah James explained.
“You’ve got more control. Where we had data for specific products or specific areas, we wanted the flexibility to be able to use that rather than relying on the standard emissions factors.”

Most significantly, the efficiency gains free up the VetPartners sustainability team for strategic work.
As Hannah James underlines, “with manual methods, you can spend all of your time on data management and reporting, rather than analysing the data and actually making the business more sustainable. By using Sweep we will free up this time and be able to work more on sustainability with our vet practice colleagues who are taking a lot of the actions which will help us reach our ESG goals”.

Hannah James also highlights Sweep’s comprehensive approach to implementing its software as a particular strong point, saying that the VetPartners team appreciated the detailed onboarding process which was laid out in advance. Meanwhile Sweep’s response to concerns about potential methodology changes causing data discontinuity, including specific examples of how other Sweep clients had been supported through similar transitions, was reassuring.

Hannah explains how this met her team’s needs:
“We knew we’d need quite a lot of support because we’re doing this alongside VetPartners’ data strategy evolving. We have lots of small sites, meaning very dispersed data is coming in, which can be quite challenging. Sweep definitely felt like they were offering the necessary support for this.”