Reducing Carbon Emissions
Our planet is facing serious challenges, climate change is a real and ongoing threat, it’s clear that “business as usual” needs to change.
Our society is becoming increasingly aware of Carbon Emissions and wanting to make positive changes, people wish to know more about the efforts of the companies supplying their services so here is a quick report of how we working towards becoming a Carbon Neutral business in 2021.
Firstly we identified our existing carbon footprint by using the The Carbon Trusts carbon footprint measurement tool. We then Benchmarked this against the Pest Control Industries average, by looking a the products & services used within the industry. We then realised our primary focus needed to be upon reducing our Greenhouse Gas emissions.
Our next step was to find an area for improvement and set out a carbon reduction plan, here are the actions we have taken so far:
Our Head Office is now powered 100% by renewable energy
Although the use of paper doesn’t affect our Carbon Emissions we have taken steps to reduce our use of paper & the impact on the environment:
Using new software & switching to an electronic system for our Technicians to use whilst out on the road to reduce the amount of paper used
Make use of ‘the cloud’ to store our documents rather than using lots of paper
Scraped paper training documents, they are now all digital by using a paperless system
Printing with care; using both sides of the paper & reducing the amount of ink used by altering settings on our printer
Here’s where it gets exciting …
Healthguard Ltd have an unique opportunity to reduce the businesses Carbon Footprint, the business owner has his own local Tree Plantation
Currently there are over 2500 trees on it, with a strategy for planting more each year
Each tree naturally absorbs around 0.16 tonnes of CO2 and releases Oxygen
100 Trees offsets 16 tonnes CO2
500 Trees offsets 83 tonnes CO2
Our plantation of 2500 Trees Offsets 416 tonnes of CO2 annually
Each of our vans emit around 13 tonnes of CO2 annually, we have a fleet of 19 vehicles totalling on average: 247 tonnes
The averages persons carbon footprint is 6.9 tonnes, we have 21 people in our team: 144.9 tonnes
397 tonnes of CO2
Meaning our tree planting activity offsets the Carbon Emissions of not only our Fleet but also our staff.
We shall continue to challenge our Carbon Footprint, our next step is to evaluate other business activities which emit Carbon and create a plan to reduce this. Our aim is to be a Carbon Free Business by the end of 2021.
