Whiter than white?
Ecology goes Carbon Neutral to be greener than green!
The remit of Ecology Building Society is to bring the weight of mortgage finance to bear on reducing the environmental impact of our houses. Despite this significant contribution to reducing the energy consumption, and hence the carbon emissions, of our housing stock, the running of the building society itself incurs the need for office accommodation and business services.
The Ecology has now signed up with Future Forests, an organisation which plants trees around the world in order to balance over time the carbon emissions caused by companies and households. Enough trees will be planted to balance over time the Ecology's CO2 emissions since 1990, the benchmark year used in the Kyoto protocol. A wide-ranging energy audit looked not only at gas and electricity consumption but the total environmental impact of the organisation, including the volume of mail dispatched, business travel and even the number of hotel nights required.
"We have undertaken a rigorous assessment of our carbon emissions", says Ecology chief executive Paul Ellis, "and as well as our mortgages reducing the carbon emissions of our housing stock, the organisation itself has now cut its carbon impact." Daren Howarth of Future Forests adds, "As a green organisation we knew the Ecology would be interested in joining our carbon management programme, they can now certainly claim to be going greener than green!"
As well as signing up with Future Forests the Ecology has also switched to renewable electricity from Stroud-based Ecotricity. "Compensating for our carbon emissions is only one step," says Ellis, "reducing our level of carbon emissions in the first place is critical. Our electricity now comes from renewable sources, so producing much less CO2 to have to compensate for!"
For information on the Ecology call 0845 674 5566 or visit our website at: www.ecology.co.uk
