London Green 500 Save Carbon and Reduce Energy Bills
At the recent London Green Awards event the Major of London Boris Johnson praised businesses in the various green schemes as they saved 570,000 tonnes of carbon and £70 million from their combined energy bills.
There are various schemes across the capital for all businesses to sign up to including the london green 500, the Mayor’s green procurement code and the better buildings partnership.
The main scheme, the green 500 which is set to expand later in the year for an additional 1000 businesses to become the green 1500 is a unique scheme that rewards businesses for genuine reductions in carbon emissions. The expanded scheme will be managed by the Carbon Trust and is set to save businesses up to 1 million tonnes of CO2 and reduce the energy bills of those companies by around £100 million over the lifetime of the projects that are being developed.
In this year’s green awards the main winners included :
- National Magazine company (natmag) that has an impressive recycling rate of 64.9% within the organisation and even has a food waste composting scheme and a range of bee hives that live on the roofs of its offices
- Radisson Edwardian hotel group that through a staff incentive programme managed to reduce its electricity consumption by an impressive 13% and have installed a combined heat and power system in its Heathrow hotel which should save around £7,000 per year in electricity costs. Additionally all of its light bulbs are energy efficient and motion sensors are installed around the public areas
There were awards under the mayor of London’s green procurement code scheme
- Best large corporation – Ove Arup & Partners Ltd – WINNER, Skanska Infrastructure Services – RUNNER UP, Mapeley Estates – HIGHLY COMMENDED
- Best SME, Wiles Greenworld – WINNER, Urban Planters London West – RUNNER UP, Seventeen Events – HIGHLY COMMENDED
- Best in public sector, London Borough of Newham -WINNER, London Borough of Hackney – RUNNER UP, London Borough of Greenwich – HIGHLY COMMENDED
- Best in the GLA Group, Metropolitan Police Service – WINNER, Transport for London – RUNNER UP, London Fire Brigade- HIGHLY COMMENDED
- Best in third sector, St Giles Trust – WINNER, ELATT – RUNNER UP, Inside Job Productions – HIGHLY COMMENDED
- Best Newcomer, Ofgem – WINNER, Chequers Contract Services Ltd – RUNNER UP, Courier Systems – HIGHLY COMMENDED
The better buildings partnership is a scheme where commercial property owners work together with their tenants to develop energy efficiency programmes and the award winners were as follows :
- Hermes real estate for having the lowest carbon intensive property portfolio
- British Land who in conjunction with their occupiers reduced their amount of CO2 by 2,5000 tonnes which saved them over £500,000 off their electricity bills
- Legal and General property that installed energy efficiency measures that reduced electricity consumption by 21% and saved 450 tonnes of carbon and reduced the cost for their tenants by a massive £70,000 per year
Where to find more information
If you would like your business to be involved in reducing CO2 emissions and to save money on your electricity bills then here are the links
These schemes offer a lot of valuable information on developing energy efficiency measures which not only reduce CO2 emissions but also save the companies involved many thousands of pounds each year in electricity costs.
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