Centrica plc has today published its Responsible Business Ambitions, outlining a series of long-term goals that will accelerate the company’s efforts to drive forward sustainability across the Centrica Group and its customers.
The Ambitions support the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and aim to tackle some of the most challenging issues facing the environment and wider society, focusing on four key areas: customers, climate change, colleagues, and the communities in which Centrica operates.
The company has set out clear goals for tackling climate change up to 2030 that are aligned to the Paris Agreement, including a target to deliver 7GW of flexible, distributed and low carbon technologies globally – equivalent to over 10% of current UK peak demand.
Centrica’s distributed energy and power business, Centrica Business Solutions, sits at the heart of the climate goals, which will be achieved through a combination of customer solutions and owned projects including battery storage, solar, combined heat and power (CHP), demand response, and peaking plants. The company’s energy marketing and trading business will also play a key role in providing a route-to-market for renewables by balancing and trading power production as part of multiple wind farm agreements across Europe.
“As a leading energy and services business, we want to continue to play a meaningful role in tackling climate change and supporting national and international carbon reduction targets. James Rushen Group Head of Environment for Centrica
“We’ve already come a long way and now produce over 80% less carbon than we did a decade ago through shifting our focus away from being a traditional utility operating centralized generation and production assets to become a customer-facing energy and services company. We have now committed to reduce Centrica’s internal emissions by a further 35% in the ten years to 2025 and, by 2030, demonstrate that we remain on track with Paris and develop a path to net zero by 2050.
“We are now entering a new phase where we must innovate to facilitate and harness our customers’ ability to change, finding ways to help our customers use energy more sustainably, decarbonize the energy system and reduce our own emissions.”
In addition to the 7GW goal, the company has committed to helping customers reduce their emissions by 25%, directly contributing 3% via its products and services, which is equivalent to the annual emissions of 2.5 million UK homes. Centrica will further reduce customer emissions indirectly through de-carbonizing the wider energy system and using their expertise to influence policy and establish the conditions required for de-carbonization.
For more information, go to www.centrica.com/Ambition2030.
Centrica’s 2030 Responsible Business Ambitions also include:
Centrica plc is an international energy and services company. Everything we do is focused on satisfying the changing needs of our customers. We aim to deliver shareholder value through returns and growth, be a trusted corporate citizen, an employer of choice and to be known as a forward-looking energy and services company.
We supply energy and services to more than 25 million customer accounts in the UK, Ireland and North America through brands such as British Gas, Direct Energy, Bord Gáis Energy and Hive, all supported by around 15,000 engineers and technicians.
We have three global business divisions: Centrica Consumer, Centrica Business and Exploration & Production. All are underpinned by investment in technology.
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