Earth Day: A Call to Action

Earth Day, observed annually on April 22nd, serves as a global reminder of our responsibility to protect and preserve the environment for current and future generations. For building services and sustainability consultancies like ours, Earth Day can act as a call to action and a reminder of the impact our industry has on the planet, and the role we play in shaping a sustainable future.

What are Method doing as a business?

As a business we are working to reduce our CO2 emissions and aligning ourselves with the UN sustainable development goals.

Since 2019 we have measured our CO2 emissions as a business using the PAS 2060 standard. These calculations have provided a framework for our decision-making process as a business and have helped identify our largest sources of emissions and what steps we can take to reduce these.

Method have taken the following steps to reduce our impact:

• Relocation of Swindon office to premises with improved building fabric and all-electric based heating
• Relocation of Swindon office to town centre location with improved public transport links
• Reinstatement of the Method monthly sustainable travel day to promote lower carbon means of commuting.
• Review of supply chain and switching to suppliers more closely aligned to our business values where possible
• Review of company catering policy and an aim to reduce the carbon emissions associated with our company catering choices. We have also significantly increased the proportion of non-dairy milks being provided for the office, to aim to reduce the carbon emissions associated with our tea and coffee drinking habits
• With the assistance of our financial advisers identified a sustainable investment plan which our staff can now opt for as part of their pension scheme
• Provision of a electric vehicle salary sacrifice scheme for all members of staff to help assist make the switch away from fossil fuel powered vehicles
• Provision of cycle to work salary sacrifice scheme implemented to financially assist staff members to adopt cycling as a more sustainable form of travel
• Offsetting of company carbon emissions by supporting low carbon projects in our communities. We have opted as a company to look to support local and charity projects in their carbon emission reduction projects rather than buying woodland associated carbon credits which historically have had issues with verification of true carbon reductions. Projects we have supported to date include:

Perranporth Surf Life Saving Club

Offsetting of associated previous years carbon emissions by sponsorship of Perranporth Surf Life Saving Club’s PV, solar thermal, insulation and lighting upgrade.

Minchinhampton Primary School

Offsetting of previous years carbon footprint through sponsorship of 40kWp PV array at Minchinhampton primary school.

What are Method doing for our clients?

The industry is at the beginning of a massive growth in demand for net zero consultancy and buildings. At Method we strive to push sustainable designs forward and have tried to push the industry forward through being a signatory of the Building Services Engineers movement and steering groups on a number of committees. In the past year we have had dozens if not hundreds of projects that have pushed the sustainable design of buildings forward, but to name a few of the most notable:

100 Victoria Street – This Bristol Office refurbishment project handed over this year to much fanfare and a veritable smorgasbord of accreditations including BREEAM Outstanding, EPC A, Fitwel 2*, Net Zero Carbon. The project has already one a number of awards including Bristol Property Awards Commercial Development of the year and Transformation project of the year

North Quay House – Another Bristol Office refurbishment project which has handed over this year. This project was another great example of repurposing and retrofitting building and the benefits this can bring. The project has an upfront embodied carbon of 251kgCO2e/m2 which is 28% lower than the LETI 2030 target.

Net Zero Carbon Schools – This year we have worked on a number of both traditionally built and modular school designs under the new Department of Education design standards. These require the buildings to be modelled to CIBSE TM54 standards to demonstrate how the building meets Net Zero Carbon on-site.

Vaughan Road – 92No. Passivhaus apartments with majority of tenure being social and later for Exeter Council. The heating and ventilation strategy includes combined MVHR, heat pump, hot water cylinder. The building heating demand is less than 15kWh/m2 with overall energy consumption 120kWh/m2/yr.

What can we do as individuals?

We all have a responsibility as individuals to support the global effort to tackle and adapt to climate change.

The average carbon footprint per person in the UK is around 10 tonnes and in order to limit global warming we all need to try and reduce our individual carbon footprint to just 2 tonnes a year.

Things you might want to consider:

• Calculate your carbon footprint and commit to reducing it
• Consider a balanced healthy diet, for example with less beef, lamb and dairy. Also consider how you can reduce your food waste.
• Consider your modes of transport and how you could fly and use the car less but make more use of public transport and walking/cycling
• Reduce consumption of fast fashion, consider second hand and upcycled clothing
• Consider divesting from fossil fuels with your investments and pension.
• If you own a home consider what upgrades you can make to reduce your emissions including insulation, installing PV, installing LED lighting, replacing your gas boiler with a heat pump
• Purchase food that is local and “in season”, and therefore not requiring importing from other countries
• Reducing shower times and not leaving water running while brushing teeth/shaving
• Turning off lights when not in a room
• Consider utilising reusable cleaning cloths (instead of paper towel) or reusable make up removal pads (instead of cotton pads)

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Further reading

Doughnut Economics seven ways to think like a 21st century economist

Green Swans coming regenerative capitalism

The Climate book Greta Thunberg

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