Targets to reduce our impact on the environment have been exceeded in the past year as the Coronavirus pandemic has had a positive impact on our carbon footprint. We achieved an absolute reduction of 16.7% and a reduction of 17.9% per employee.
With the company enforcing the Government’s ‘work from home if you can’ policy, travel, waste and energy usage have decreased across the B+K Group.
Bowmer + Kirkland Environmental and Technical Manager, Graham Lee, said: “Obviously the pandemic has had a major impact on our carbon footprint this year, but nevertheless, our figures up to March 2020 (the first lockdown) do show that we were on course to achieve our target for the year. Our plans for the future include encouraging more company car drivers to go green by choosing electric/hybrid cars and we are investing in further electric car charging points at our head office in Derbyshire. We also plan to make greater use of technology for meetings as the last 10 months have proved how easy, convenient and environmentally-friendly online meetings are.”
We have been measuring the carbon footprint of our business operations since 2006. This is audited annually and has been certified, for most of the last 14 years, through the Planet Mark Scheme. Our carbon footprint data analysis covers Scope 1 (gas, fleet vehicles), Scope 2(electricity) and some Scope 3 emissions (non-fleet vehicles, air travel, rail travel, waste, paper, recycling etc) under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Certification to The Planet Mark is based on a commitment to continuous improvement and we have set an annual target of 5% reduction to our carbon footprint since 2006, agreed with Planet First. Comparing our carbon footprint data in our first report, 2006-2007, with our most recent carbon footprint report showed a reduction overall of 65% per employee – which is over 6% annually over this period compared with our target of 5% annually. These savings have been achieved through a range of initiatives targeting each scope of emissions under the GHG Protocol. One such initiative, for example, was the provision of solar panels at our headquarters building in Heage, Derbyshire.