Sustainability
A Sustainable Future: Our Carbon-Negative Commitment
In 2021 we commissioned Carbon Neutral Britain – an expert in the calculation of CO2e, to understand what our carbon footprint was, where our emissions occur, and how we can reduce these as a self storage provider with 23 locations in the UK. From this report, we had set our goals and commitment to becoming a more sustainable self storage UK business.
Our Progress
30% reduction in our CO2 emissions
The latest report shows our total carbon footprint is 431.95 tCO2e, that’s a 30% reduction compared to the total of 615 tCO2e in our last report! We are very proud to have made such progress in just 12 months because of dedication to our sustainability programmes:
- Removed all forklifts on site
- Replaced store fridges with a higher efficiency energy rating
- Reduction in the energy use on sites with the LED lighting project
- Organisation waste reduction across all sites
- Water usage reduction across all sites
Carbon Neutral to Carbon Negative
In August 2021 we became a carbon neutral company by offsetting our emissions through our investment in Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Gold Standard Voluntary Emission Reductions (VER) and Certified Emission Reductions (CER) programmes. These range from reforestation programmes in South America to woodland management initiatives at home in the UK.
This year we continued our effort to make a positive impact on climate change by offsetting an extra 15% of emissions via Climate and Woodland Funds which makes us a Carbon Negative British Company.
Climate and Woodland Funds Projects Invested:
- Climate Fund supports wind, solar, hydro and cook stove projects in developing countries around the world. This includes Chile, India, Philippines, Brazil and Kenya.
- Woodland Fund supports reforestation, deforestation prevention and woodland management projects. Up to 10% of the budget is also spent on sustainable projects in Britain, for Britain
Our Goals
We have made great progress so far and we will continue our journey to minimise the impact on the environment with the following goals and projects:
- To reduce carbon emissions by 50% in 2025 – we achieved a 30% reduction since the first report 2020/21
- By 2030 all sites will have electric vehicle charging points
- From 2023, all new company vehicles will be fully electric
- All new build stores will be built carbon neutral
- To reduce printing across the business by 50% by the end of 2022
- To reduce waste to landfill by 50% by 2025
- All existing stores to have LED lighting in 2023 – over 50% of our stores already have LED lighting installed
- All new stores to have LED lighting
(more:trees)
As well as our aim to reduce our carbon footprint, we have recently partnered with (more:trees) to help sequester CO2 emissions. For every customer’s review on Google, we are planting a tree via (more: trees), who are involved in global tree planting projects.
Want to get involved? Simply leave us a Google Review by selecting your local store. Help us to do our part for the planet. You can even check our progress here.