Why Net Zero matters
30 November 2022
Adopting procedures and practices to achieve Net Zero status will help organisations win business in the future as well as protecting the planet.
That was the message conveyed in a seminar held during the Speedy Expo event in Liverpool last month (pictured), presented by Amelia Woodley, the hirer’s ESG director, and Maria Niebla, senior carbon consultant at the Hydrock construction and environmental services agency with which Speedy is working.
Maria Niebla outlined how Net Zero ambitions were driven by the need to meet targets laid down by the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, which set goals to reduce the global temperature increase in this century to at most 2C and, ideally, by 1.5C.
Countries must put in place measures to achieve this which, in turn, means that organisations and individuals need to take appropriate actions.
She said that emission improvement targets could be put in place against an initial baseline measurement, with reductions being made within the Scope 1, 2 and 3 categories. Scope 3 effectively covers the emissions arising from other stakeholders in a firm’s supply chain.
Maria said that customers and suppliers will increasingly ask those they deal with to demonstrate their own carbon reduction status and initiatives so that they can lower their overall environmental impact. (This requirement has been discussed previously on the Site-Eco blog.)
Amelia Woodley explained how Speedy is embracing its Net Zero responsibilities in practical terms and in a manner underpinned by agreed Science Based Targets, working with suppliers to calculate the carbon footprint of products and services on a whole-life basis. She said that Speedy’s supply chain accounted for 91 per cent of its carbon footprint (which is typical of many similar businesses).
Amelia added that Speedy had already achieved reductions by adopting electric vehicles, using greener fuels like HVO and lowering the carbon footprint of its premises.
Speedy’s Milton Keynes Innovation Centre is something of a flagship, already using 88 per cent renewable energy through installing roof-mounted solar panels, battery power storage facilities and remote energy management systems. Indeed, this experience has helped to devise a standard of environmental provision for Speedy’s future new properties and retrofit initiatives to existing buildings.
Interestingly, both seminar speakers agreed that while the route to Net Zero was challenging, customers and suppliers were invigorated by the process and enthusiastic about achievements that could be made, which will drive initiatives forward.
(Photo: Alan Guthrie)
