Climate Change
Sodexo is a member of The Prince's May Day Network, the UK's largest group of businesses committed to taking action on climate change. The Prince's May Day Network is convened by Business in the Community, and helps businesses realise benefits from taking action on climate change. It is sponsored by businesses that are taking a lead on climate change, and partners with key business support organisations.
Carbon footprinting
Although not a new concept, the latest requirements on measuring greenhouse gases will make carbon footprinting increasingly relevant for many businesses.
In 2008, Sodexo engaged external expertise to calculate the carbon footprint of UK operations. The project assessed the carbon emissions associated with our energy and fuel use, employee travel, supply chain logistics, waste disposal and refrigerant losses, as well as the embedded carbon of waste packaging and food, to identify those areas of our business with the largest contributions. The carbon footprint model developed will allow us to track our emissions in a consistent way in the future and inform business decisions regarding emissions reductions.
Energy efficiency
During an 'Energy Efficiency Week' in November 2007, 135 employees at our Solar House office in Stevenage joined in an initiative to reduce their personal impact on energy consumption. Timers were fitted to coffee and water machines, the heating system was fine-tuned and employees were encouraged to turn off lights when leaving a room and shut their computers down properly at the end of the day. As a result of these simple actions, out-of-working-hours energy consumption fell by 11%.
The energy-saving programme has since continued at Solar House and 2008 consumption (compared with 2007) fell by 3% during work hours and 14% during out-of-office hours, resulting in a saving of approximately three weeks' worth of electricity. The success of this scheme is being promoted across other Sodexo offices.
“Energy Efficiency Week gave us the opportunity to introduce some energy-saving practices and challenge the mindsets of our people to show that small changes can make a big difference.”
Richard Priestley, Sodexo property manager - south
We purchase energy and utilities from suppliers that can demonstrate their commitment to more environmentally sustainable sources of energy wherever possible. In 2008, 23% of electricity procured and consumed by Sodexo was from 'Good Quality Combined Heat and Power' (GQCHP). This significantly reduces CO2 emissions by generating electricity and heat from a single waste source and eliminating the need to burn extra fossil fuel. We are also working to reduce carbon emissions from commercial vehicles and, in 2008, set up a commercial vehicle forum.
Saving fuel
During 2007-2008, we reduced fuel consumption across our 850 commercial vehicles by 2.5%, thereby reducing CO2 emissions by 100 tonnes. Actions that have contributed to this improvement include:
- fitting a telematic system to the vans at our Land Technology and Facilities Management sites (over a third of our total fleet) to monitor how efficiently they are used and to improve route planning
- continuing to replace unleaded fuel vehicles with diesel vehicles, which currently represent 83% of our fleet (up from 68% diesel vehicles in 2006 when we started measuring)
- the introduction of a vehicle drivers' pack in our Land Technology and Facilities Management businesses, and a transport manual in Sodexo Defence
- dedicated personnel to manage fleet vehicles
