Our Environmental Footprint
It’s not easy being green – it takes a lot of work!
We’ve been calculating our Environmental Footprint every year since 2010. It’s not about how green our electricity is - that’s taken care of in our Fuel Mix statistics. It’s about the greenness of everything else we do – what goes on behind the scenes, from selecting a site for a new solar farm and servicing our windmills through to the running of our offices.
We look at the impact that everything we do has on the environment – and we make it as green as can be. We’re now certified to ISO14001 as a mark of how we are continually striving to improve our performance and reduce our impact on the world around us as promised in our Environmental Policy.
It’s a bit like food miles – it’s not just the impact of the product itself, it’s the process it goes through as it’s delivered.
We’re probably the only energy company in the world that actually knows the carbon cost per customer of our operations. In 2020 that was 1.0kg CO2 per customer, down 30% on the year before!
Our 2020 Environmental Footprint Report
Our aim is to become a zero carbon organisation by 2025, and our eleventh Environmental Footprint report gives us a clear picture of the progress we’ve made and what else we need to do to achieve our goal.
2020 was by no means a typical year for any of us. The impacts of COVID19 can be seen in our data as we all changed the way we worked to keep folk safe. Although our sites have remained open, utility usage has been radically cut with a 25% drop in gas consumption, 12% less electric and a whopping 70% less water used compared to a typical year (even with all the extra hand washing and cleaning)
Our emissions from energy consumption (and impact on the environment) are calculated on a tariff basis. As our electricity is sourced 100% from renewables it’s calculated at zero impact. Supporting renewables in this way has helped contribute to the UK’s transition away from dirty coal – UK grid average electricity now has around half the carbon footprint than it did 10 years ago.
In September 2019 we introduced our Carbon Neutral gas tariff, and so 2020 was the first full year where our gas consumption can be calculated with a zero carbon footprint.
Our 2020 Carbon Footprint (Tonnes of CO2)
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | % Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Electric | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 |
| Gas | 102.0 | 29.1 | 0.0 | -100 |
| Water | 7.5 | 5.4 | 3.0 | -44 |
| Pool car / Van fuel | 230.9 | 220.3 | 182.0 | -17 |
| Grey fleet (staff own vehicles) | 0.0 | 8.8 | 7.0 | -20 |
| Air Transport | 19.1 | 6.9 | 0.0 | -100 |
| Total emissions | 359.6 | 270.4 | 192.0 | -29 |
| Emissions (kg per customer) | 1.86 | 1.44 | 1.0 | -31 |
Our 2021 environmental targets
We’re still all adapting to the impacts that COVID has had on the way businesses operate around the world. As a knock on from this we’re not looking to set reduction targets against our pre-COVID baseline year of 2018 (that’s going to happen naturally with less people travelling and working in the office). Instead we’re going to use the year ahead to collect data, look at ways of addressing emissions in our supply chain (Scope 3) plan for how best we can continue our journey towards being carbon neutral.
If you have any questions regarding the report or our Environmental Management System in general then please contact our Sustainability Lead – Gary Thomas (gary.thomas@ecotricity.co.uk)