Operations

We’ve cut our net carbon footprint by 12% compared to our 2003 baseline, by reducing our energy use and travel and investing in a renewable electricity tariff¹ at a time when our business has grown substantially. We’re setting ambitious targets to do even more over the next few years.

Energy

Carbon emissions from energy use accounts for around 53% of our net carbon footprint. As a result, this year we decided to install “smart” electricity meters in all the buildings we own, to measure electricity use floor by floor and help us identify potential savings. We’ll be rolling these out next year and will publish the results on our intranet to engage employees to reduce what they use. Other improvements we’ve made include installing chilled beam technology air conditioning systems that use less energy, solar powered lighting, and controls that automatically switch lights off when a room is not being used.

Data centres can consume a lot of energy. So we’re reducing the number of data centres we use from thirteen to two, and making energy efficiency a priority at these sites. Steps we’ve taken so far include replacing older servers with newer machines that can store up to 10 times more data without increasing power consumption, and an innovative cooling system that directs cold air to where it’s needed.

The implementation of a number of energy efficiency initiatives, including the installation of efficient chillers, variable speed pumps, and the continued investment in energy efficient lighting and smart metering our main sites including Osterley, Chilworth, Dunfermline and Livingston has contributed to a 5% reduction in electricity use and a 21% reduction in gas consumption over the past 12 months.

We purchase all of our electricity requirements for UK owned sites from a renewable energy tariff with Scottish and Southern, which includes the energy output of a wind farm on the Isle of Skye. Scottish and Southern, on behalf of ourselves, retain the appropriate certificates linked with the power / KWh purchased in the form of Levy Exemption Certificates (LECs) and Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs).

Business travel

Transport accounts for 42% of our total net carbon footprint. Around 92% of our van fleet is now warranted to use sustainably-sourced B30 biodiesel, and we’ve also introduced hybrid vehicles for our regional managers. We use a route planning system and a training programme to help engineers get the best fuel economy from their vans.

Business travel is another important focus, especially flights between Edinburgh and London where most of our staff are based. We use an HD virtual meeting service to replace flights where possible. We also designated April 2009 a ‘No Fly Month’, and challenged employees to reduce business air travel by using alternatives such as trains and video conferencing. We were delighted to see a reduction in flights of 60% during the month and gave out awards to the departments who did most to reduce air travel. Over the year there has been a 35% decrease in business air travel and we’ll be looking to continue this trend over the coming year.

Carbon neutral

For emissions we can’t yet reduce or avoid, we invest in verified offsets². We offset areas within our operational control, in line with the Carbon Neutral Company’s definition of a CarbonNeutral® organisation³. – this includes all our scope 1 and 2 net emissions, and scope 3 net emissions from waste and business air travel. This year we are also offsetting the scope 3 emissions from fuel and electricity used in the construction of our new broadcast facility, Harlequin One.

Investment in renewable energy, either directly on site or indirectly through a renewable energy tariff⁴ is a key part of our environment strategy to promote the use of renewable energy and support the government’s targets for renewable energy generation. As a result, we do not offset renewable energy we purchase and only offset our net emissions rather than our gross emissions.

For more information on the projects in which we are investing and more information on our carbon neutral strategy see our website.

Again, this year we have engaged ERM to independently assure our carbon neutral status. See ERM's assurance statement here.

Waste

We’ve increased recycling by more than 85% and reduced waste sent to landfill by over 42% over the past 2 years. This year we made recycling even easier for our employees by introducing mixed bins. Waste is sorted by our contractor and employees no longer need to worry about which waste goes in which bin. We ran a publicity campaign to let everyone know about the change. This year we recycled 71% of the waste we generated which is up from 55% last year. Through the introduction of composting, our sites in Livingston and Dunfermline diverted 91% of their waste from landfill this year.

Our customers can use our free take back service to recycle their old Sky equipment, and we include information on this service on the packaging for all new set top boxes. Visit our website to find out more about recycling your old Sky equipment.

The UK’s Environment Agency audited our compliance with the Producer Obligation (Packaging Waste) Regulations and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations this year and were satisfied that we comply with all requirements.

We also comply with the Batteries and Accumulator Regulations and the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation & Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) Regulations which came into force this year.

Water

As a company we are not a significant user of water but nevertheless we think it important to monitor and reduce our use. This year we have reduced our water consumption by 22% from 9.59 m3 per full time equivalent member of staff (FTE) in 2007/08 to 7.51 m3 per FTE. At our Osterley campus we achieved a reduction by working with Thames Water to review and improve our water infrastructure. In Scotland we have reduced the number of water dispensers and are introducing additional water saving devices such as Hippos throughout our buildings.

¹

To find out more about how we have calculated our carbon footprint see Explaining our Carbon Footprint

²

For more information on our carbon offsets please refer to our carbon neutral strategy on our website

³

As defined in TCNC’s ‘CarbonNeutral® Protocol v.5.0 (valid from 1 July 2008)’

⁴

Our renewable energy tariff is fully supported with Renewable Energy Generating Obligations (REGO) Certificates and climate change Levy Exemption Certificates (LECs).

⁵

The air travel data shown in the Net CO2e Emissions graph includes both business air travel and business air freight CO2e emissions data.