Environmental Report 2011

After many hours spent chasing invoices, looking at spreadsheets and working out emission factors we've finally published our Environmental Report for 2011. I don't know (yet) how to add a document to this blog, so if you'd like a copy sent to you please email me at audrey@castle-climbing.co.uk and I'll be happy to send you a copy. It's important to me that this information is available so that other businesses can learm from our experiences and help reduce their own carbon footprint.

  If you just want a quick summary of the key facts, read on:

- Carbon Footprint for 2011 : 100.17 tonnes CO2e (14.5% reduction from 2010, 27% reduction from when we started reporting in 2008)
- Cafe : we opened our own kitchen to process food grown in our organic garden. In 2011 we were just starting to transition from purchased food to homemade- this is nearing completion in 2012.
- Shop : we continue to increase our range of certified organic cotton clothing and bluesign labelled products. The refurbishment in August/September has made the shop more energy efficient with better lighting and insulation.
- IT : we've redesigned and upgraded network to reduce power consumed onsite.
- Waste : we've significantly reduced our waste to landfill (by 78%). We now send one 240L bin to landfill per week. Not bad for one the country's busiest climbing centres!
- Travel: this is the one area that we've not improved on. Due to the higher number of guest setters travelling to London, we have more carbon emissions than in previous years, but less mileage. Must do better.
- Electricity consumption has gone down quite a bit. We have yet to analyse all of our monitoring data, so we don't yet know what changes are most effective.
- Water consumption has remained constant despite increased demand from our garden because we are using rainwater and greywater to irrigate.
- The garden saw many developments in 2011, most of which are reported by Ida on this blog. Key ones included a greywater filtration system, a wildlife pond and many more plants.
- Our two big events - the annual garden party and xmas party- were very low impact with minimal waste.
- We awarded two Castle eco-grants in 2011 to staff to be able to volunteer their time to environmental charities.
- We continue to offer Bike To Work scheme and eco-days (bonus holidays for sustainable travel) to staff.

We're able to do all this because of the support of our shareholders, our Board of Directors and the continued commitment of all of the staff. Thank you!

Audrey Seguy, Managing Director
audrey@castle-climbing.co.uk