Climate Action
Last month we looked at Sustainable Development Goal 12: ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’, highlighting almost 100% cardboard product packaging across The Traffic Group and our recent achievements at MAV and AGD with responsible waste management.
This month we focus on Sustainable Development Goal 13: ‘Climate Action. The focus of this goal is for us to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG, or CO2e) emissions as a business and as a society. Improving education and awareness of how to mitigate the impacts of climate change also plays a role
The effects of climate change are real and damaging; with record-breaking warmth over New Year 2022 in the UK, more frequent heatwaves and heavy downpours. Last year, wheat production faced its worst yield in 30 years. Farming will continue to produce fewer yields, and crop nutrients will decline, leading to undernutrition, hunger, and higher food prices.
TGS Climate Impact
To combat this, here’s some of what we have achieved so far at The Traffic Group:
MAV and TGS Hollco have 100% renewable energy suppliers.
Our solar farm generated 12% of our total electricity consumption in 2021.
Our Group vehicle fleet is 1/3 hybrid.
We have just purchased our first Electric Vehicle (EV).
AGD’s switch to a Green Gas supplier will save more than 11 tonnes of CO2e annually.
We now have 4 EV Charging Points across all sites.
To find out more about our progress, please contact Ciara at ciara.hutchinson@trafficgroupsignals.com
Future Plans
We have several ways we are looking to combat this further. Our primary direct emissions sources are from energy suppliers and vehicles. While the technology doesn’t exist to have emission-free flatbed trucks, we are looking to electrify the smaller vehicles in our fleet.
This will be coupled with choosing green energy suppliers and even generating more renewable energy on-site where we can. There are other emissions more indirect to our business from all manner of things that we intend to start measuring and then, of course, reduce such as:
Transportation & distribution of inbound and outbound products
Business Travel
Waste generated in operations
End-of-life treatment of products
FAQ
Net-Zero vs Carbon-Neutral – What’s the difference?
Carbon Neutral refers to offsetting carbon emissions, so the total is not increasing overall, which can be done by either:
- Carbon Reduction i.e. preventing carbon that would otherwise have been released.
- Carbon Removal i.e. tree planting to create natural carbon sinks, or man-made carbon capture and storage technologies.
Net-Zero means reducing carbon emissions as far as possible, and off-setting unavoidable emissions through carbon removal only.
You’re removing the same volume of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere compared to what you are producing.