The text below is the transcript from the SPR Community Benefits Vlog video.

Video Title: SPR Community Benefits Vlog

Reducing our carbon footprint is essential if we are to tackle the climate emergency that the world faces today, we all have a carbon footprint, from each individual house to communities, to towns, to countries and to companies and we all have a responsibility to understand that and then take steps to try and reduce it.

At the moment the world is on track for a dangerous level of climate change and we can see those impacts across the world today and across the UK we will experience those very same impacts we are likely to see wetter and stormier winters and hotter summers with heavier rainfall, so all of these things will impact upon all of us across the UK and for that reason and because nowhere is isolated from the impacts of climate change its hugely important that we understand our footprint and we take action to cut it.

Net zero is a term that is being used increasingly to describe our ambition for tackling climate change it effectively means a point where the emissions like carbon dioxide and other climate change gasses are equal to the amount of carbon dioxide that the earth absorbs. But really what we should really be focusing on in that phrase is the zero part of it because for most of our carbon footprint we have to reduce those emissions to zero, that’s whether it be in the transport in car and vehicles that we use to move around, to move good around or in our homes, how we heat our homes, or in electricity that we generate across the UK to power our economy. All of this needs to get to zero.

There are some areas of the UK economy like farming and heavy industry which are a really hard challenge, and we will need to capture the same amount of emissions as those sectors produce in the future if we’re to get to net zero.

ScottishPower is absolutely committed to playing it’s full part in tackling climate change, we’ve left fossil fuels behind and now only generate electricity from renewable sources, we no longer have any coal or gas in our generation mix so we’re absolutely committed to making the biggest contribution we can to tackling climate change.

But that goes beyond just what we’re doing with the electricity that we generate but also other commitments like we have committed to replacing all of our vehicle fleet to electric vehicles, we are doing climate literacy programmes across our staff and engagement, so everybody has an understanding of climate change, we’re engaging with our supply chains to support them in helping to drive down emissions reductions.

We are also a Principal Partner in supporting the climate conference in Glasgow in November of this year putting us at the heart of that global effort to tackle climate change and playing a part as a host to the world coming to Glasgow and supporting what we hope will be a really successful conference that will put the world on track to a safer future and away from dangerous climate change.

There’s so much we can do in our communities to tackle climate change firstly, we should talk about climate change its shouldn’t be something that’s hidden away or ignored or put to one side but first of all we have to engage with this it’s a reality that’s impacted on us now and the transition the steps we need to take in order to tackle climate change could be hugely beneficial, it could cut our fuel bills they can free up space, the can provide greater green space, they can improve the quality of our housing and reduce the burden of living in poor quality, poor energy efficient housing so there’s an awful lot we can do. Perhaps the first place to start is by getting a handle on what our carbon footprint is, looking at the big activities in our communities that have a big climate impact do we have any big reliance on vehicles?

What can we do to transition those to electric vehicles? How could we do that? Could we share vehicles and have community functions where transports kind of brought together? Can we look at the buildings we use? Can we retrofit them to reduce their energy demand and then can we look to replace the fossil fuels that heat those buildings with new alternatives like air source heat pumps or solar panels.

So, there’s an awful lot that can be done, but first and foremost it’s probably most important to understand that there is a carbon footprint to all of our activities and how big that is.