Western Lettings – Our Journey to Carbon Neutral
Western Lettings is absolutely delighted to announce that we have just been assessed as a carbon neutral organisation. We have spent the last few months working with Carbon Footprint towards this goal. We believe we are currently the only letting agency /estate agents in Scotland to hold this certification.
What is carbon neutrality?
Carbon neutrality refers to achieving net zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be done by balancing carbon dioxide emissions (or other greenhouse gases) with the removal of carbon dioxide or carbon offsetting. Carbon offsetting is a way of compensating for your greenhouse gas emissions by funding schemes designed to reduce future emissions e.g. reforestation or clean energy projects.
Why is carbon neutrality important?
Climate change is caused by increasing amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere. The primary cause of CO2 emissions is the burning of fossil fuels e.g. coal, natural gas and oil. Finding ways to reduce or offset our CO2 emissions is vitally important to try and reduce the acceleration of climate change.
In fact, climate change is now recognised as a significant global threat and even locally represents the single greatest threat to Scotland’s habitats. In 2021 Glasgow is set to host COP26 (UN Climate Change Conference) with more than 200 world leaders in attendance. In addition, the Scottish government has set itself a legally-binding target to cut greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland to net zero by 2045.
How we achieved carbon neutrality
Carbon Footprint spent a couple of months with us, gathering lots of data on our CO2 emissions over the previous year. All areas of our business were included. This was followed by a detailed analysis to pinpoint where we were generating the most CO2. We discovered that over 65% of our carbon emissions were coming from our company cars! The next biggest contributor was, less surprisingly, our on-site electricity and gas utilities. At the end of the assessment process, we were delighted to achieve the result we had hoped for – carbon neutral status!
Our next steps
Although we are delighted to have achieved carbon neutrality we are not stopping there. We are committed to doing even more to reduce our carbon emissions.
- We currently have two electric vehicles (EVs) and two petrol vehicles. We have also installed two electric car charging points on-site. We plan to have all electric company cars from mid 2021.
- We are reducing our energy consumption and moving to renewable energy suppliers
- As well as being almost completely paperless we are currently migrating to digital notebooks
- We are increasing our recycling, particularly in areas where waste prevention is not possible
- We will continue to offset our greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects which provide sustainable solutions to climate change
Western Lettings is a highly accredited letting agency in Glasgow specialising in property letting and property management. If you want to find out more about our services, please get in touch or give us a call on 0141 357 0436
