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ROLLS ROYCE
Due to its long history of optimising the environmental performance of its products; rolls Royce has helped reduce aircraft noise by 75% and fuel burn by 70% on a passenger per kilometre basis.
In 2007, Rolls Royce was announced as the leading member of the environmentally friendly engine programme, a uk government and industry initiative to develop a technologies which will halve the amount of aviation fuel used per passenger. In the marine sector their latest k gas engine which is certified to power the world’s first major car and passenger ferries running on liquefied natural gas, produces up 90% less oxides of nitrogen and 20% less carbon dioxide than traditional diesel engines.
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Rolls Royce is developing megawatt-scale, solid oxide fuel cells system that will deliver significant reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, relative to existing fossil fuel power generation. A 250 kilowatt unit is planned to be tested in 2008. They are also exploring the feasibility of renewable power sources such as tidal stream and offshore wind.
SPORTS DIRECT
The Group has a network of 375 stores in the UK (excluding Northern Ireland), and to keep them running and fully stocked with merchandise used 108,243,529 kHz of electricity in the
Year and runs a fleet of 40 trailers and 131 company cars that travel 5.45 million miles a year. The Group is aware of the impact that this has on CO2 emissions and the Group is committed to controlling and reducing it by managing the use of energy.
The products that are delivered to the Group are protected in transit by significant quantities of packaging, which the Group seeks to reduce and recycle.
Recycling within the National Distribution Centre is an important way of reducing the impact the Group has on the environment. By recycling, the energy and other resources used in producing packaging, and the amount put to landfill is reduced.
The Group recycles waste paper, cardboard and plastic. In the Year 60 tonnes of waste paper and 5557 tonnes of cardboard were recycled. During that year 860 tonnes of baled plastic were also recycled, mainly as a result of stores backfilling their waste to the National Distribution Centre.
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SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
The Group strives to reduce its carbon foot print, reduce energy consumption, and energy waste, throughout its operations. The store network is our largest user of energy and therefore the biggest contributor to CO2 emissions. Whilst the Group seeks to make stores more energy efficient during working hours it has identified improvements in energy use while stores are closed. In conjunction with a company licensed by the Carbon Trust, the Group has put in place an initiative to reduce the night time energy usage of all retail outlets to 7% of daily consumption, saving over 10% of the total energy bill within a year.
Currently 150 stores are being monitored on a half hourly basis to assess their electricity consumption. Poorly performing stores are identified, steps taken to reduce waste, and lessons learned applied to other stores.
All store employees receive energy training as part of their employment induction. To emphasise further the importance of complying with the energy efficiency policy, the Group is working on an incentive based bonus scheme which recognises stores’ efforts to reduce waste.
Energy efficiency is a key factor when fitting out a new store. Existing properties that are retrofitted are also subject to the same energy standards as a new store. The fleet of delivery vehicles is the second largest producer of CO2 emissions within the Group.
The fleet is currently being updated and unnecessary mileage avoided by not having set delivery routes but instead optimising route planning and ensuring that trailers are always full.
The use of plastic carrier bags also impacts on the environment. In the UK the Group’s retail businesses currently use 60 million carrier bags each year. In June 2008 biodegradable carrier bags were introduced into our stores. These bags contain an additive that allows the bags to break down into organic matter within 18 to 24 months of manufacture. The Group wished to make sure that if our bags were thrown away they would have minimal impact on the amount in landfill. Allowing for the use of the current stock of non recyclable bags the Group expects that by the end of 2008 all stores will only be using biodegradable carrier bags. In addition by the end of 2008 all stores will offer the option to customers of a bag for life.
The Group continues to research and develop clothing and footwear from sustainable and environmentally friendly processes. In particular the business is investigating the production of recyclable shoes and garments made from sustainable natural materials, thereby reducing the amount of polyester or other oil based clothing within stores.
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CLOSE BROTHERS
The group has implemented processes to manage environmental risks so as to lower its greenhouse gas emissions and reduce and recycle waste materials but also continues to seek improvements. For example, last year the group obtained a guarantee from its electricity provider that all of the electricity supplied to the group's largest office in London, which accommodated over 15% of the workforce, was from renewable sources; and almost all of its confidential paper waste was recycled. Wherever possible old IT equipment is donated to local schools, passed to organisations who can recommission for other countries or reused at our disaster recovery sites. The group continues to be a signatory to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which encourages all businesses to disclose their climate change risks, opportunities and impacts.
Other initiatives introduced around the group to reduce the group's consumption of raw materials and energy include scanners (to reduce the need for printing documents), double-sided printing, automatic shut down of personal computers at night, enhanced video conferencing equipment and communication lines (to reduce the need for travel) and motion sensor light switches.
Where data has been available, the following data suggests that the group's activities are working but also that in every case there is still room for considerable improvement:
SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Close brothers are still trying to find other ways to reduce their carbon emissions but are still trying to be as efficient as possible with their presents ideas to reduce co2.
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VODAFONE
As a multinational communications company, Vodafone plays an important role in helping to tackle climate change. Their climate change strategy has three elements:
By cutting their emissions by 50%: which limits their contribution to climate change is a priority. They have reviewed a range of options and are developing a strategy to reduce emissions across their operations.
Provide services to customers to help them reduce their emissions: They help customers reduce their carbon footprint. Their products and services contribute to lower carbon ways of living and working by reducing the need to travel and could facilitate intelligent energy management systems.
Influence others in the industry: they use their influence within the industry and beyond to address climate change, working with others through industry partnerships such as the Global sustainability Initiative Climate Change Working Group. In 2008, they publicly reiterated their support for EU targets to cut carbon emissions as part of the Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change.
SUSTAINABILITY REPORTS
Vodafone set a target to reduce CO2 emissions from their operations by 50% by 2020 across the Group from the 2006/07 baseline of 1.23 million tonnes. The target covers the operations that contributed to the 2006/07 baseline total (this excludes Turkey and India).
The company also aims to achieve this by improving energy efficiency across the business and using more green energy where economically viable to purchase, or generate at individual sites. They focus their efforts on their networks, which account for more than 80% of the CO2 emissions from our total energy use. Gains in network energy efficiency are being achieved by collaborating with equipment suppliers.
Vodafone also source around 18% of their total energy use from renewable sources and are continuing to investigate opportunities to introduce green solutions elsewhere, including purchasing green energy where this is a viable option. We carry out regular assessments of energy use within our network to monitor our climate impact and identify opportunities to reduce it.
Our Group target to achieve a 50% reduction in CO2 from 2006/07 baseline excludes our new operating companies in Turkey and India, both acquired after the 2006/07 baseline. We acknowledge that emissions from Turkey and India in particular will increase our overall carbon dioxide emissions significantly. We will develop a climate change strategy for these operating companies by 2009.
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COLT TELECOM
Colt telecom Data Centre in Amsterdam uses free air cooling to replace mechanical air conditioning. This significantly reduces energy consumption whilst maintaining customer service level agreements.
They are transferring all their internal data to servers that use virtualisation technology. This technology pools the processing power of individual servers which means that it will reduce the number of servers they use from 850 to 240, reducing energy consumption by 30% – 40%.
Colt telecom has launched a number of environmental initiatives:
A) By reviewing what and how they recycle across all their sites, putting in place a policy with targets for reducing waste and increasing recycling.
B) Where possible, printers have been set to print double-sided and in black and white, which has resulted in a 40% reduction in paper use.
C) They have reviewed our travel policy to reduce the carbon footprint created from air travel.
In the UK, colt’s engineers’ vehicles have smaller, more efficient engines than their predecessors. In Germany a growing number of its fleet runs on dual-fuel power. Elsewhere, our network and Data Centre fire control systems use ecologically sound inert atmospheric gases wherever feasible.
SUSTAINABILTY REPORT
Colt’s intention is to use the electronic communications provision introduced as part of the Transparency Directive for Luxembourg. As part of this colt telecom will ask shareholders to consent to a resolution that allows them to replace the paper annual report with an electronic version.
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