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The emissions* that we produce are mainly from our business travel and the energy consumed by our offices. We recognise that as a responsible organisation, we need to take action to become greener in the way we carry out our activities. We recently told you about our plans to improve the energy efficiency of our homes and here you can read more about some of the other steps we’ve taken on our sustainability journey so far.
We can eliminate 70% of our emissions by changing the fuels we use for business travel – switching from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles. This applies to our fleet of 400 vans but also the personal cars our staff use for business travel. We’re pleased to report we’re already on our journey to making the switch – we’re currently in the process of trialling the use of electric vans within our fleet and have recently introduced an electric car scheme for staff, which provides greater access to affordable, greener e-cars for personal and business use.
Changing the way we buy our energy can also make a big difference. The electricity that’s generated from renewable sources (known as green energy) and nuclear power (blue energy) are more environmentally friendly and we’re looking into new options that allow us to buy our energy from more renewable sources.
We also produce landfill waste as a business, which is responsible for significant (but unmeasured) Co2 emissions. Although not part of our reportable emissions, we’re making changes in this area, as we want to be able to measure our landfill waste production and identify ways to get rid of it by 2030.
Zero waste to landfill is our ultimate goal and we’re really pleased to have made some positive progress in this area. For example, earlier this year, we procured 2 new partners for our waste services to give us access to better recycling and waste disposal facilities and provide us with greater flexibility for our trade staff to be able to drop off waste with more ease, potentially saving us travel time and how much fuel we use. We know that approximately 0.6% of our trade waste goes to landfill, with most recycled and some used to produce energy. Working with these new partners means that we’re now able to measure our landfill waste more accurately across the business and start to make improvements to reduce it further.
*Emissions refer to the amount of a substance that’s produced and sent out into the air that is harmful to the environment e.g. carbon dioxide.