We want to create a better future and lead by example. That’s why sustainability is a key focus for us at Contact Electrical Wholesale, it’s a journey that we’re committed to.
Choosing sustainable vehicles
We have adjusted our fleet policy to reflect our pledge to reduce our carbon emissions. All cars driven by staff are full electric.
We’re lowering our fuel consumption of our vehicles by optimising our delivery schedules and adjusting drive time, so we’re spending less time in traffic. Changing the frequency of our fleet purchasing also means we remove aging, less efficient vehicles from our fleet.
Making our building efficient
Moving to a new site allowed us to combine our offices and stores to a single building. Taking away the need for team members to travel between locations. During the renovations of our new site we upgraded to low consumption, motion lighting. Removed an aging air conditioning unit and replaced the heating to a more energy efficient rating system.
The roof has been upgraded to give better insulation during the cold months and in 2025 solar will be added to generate what should be enough energy to run our building.
Recycle, re-use and re-purpose
We recycle a majority of our packaging. In fact we don’t buy any packaging other than protective honeycomb wrapping and paper packing tape. We shred all paper and re-use it as stuffing. Our cable reels and pallets are also either re-used by us or returned to suppliers to re-use.
We’ve reduced our paper and print consumption considerably and will continue to do so until we are totally paperless.
We're proud to be making a change
We’re reducing our carbon footprint and we challenge our suppliers to do the same. We continually seek ways in which to improve our efforts and as an independent wholesaler we’re able to test and implement operational adjustments swiftly.
We choose service providers on their sustainability credentials. For example all our electricity is certified green, and also certified vegan! Our gas supply is a mix of carbon-neutralised natural gas and sustainable green gas.
These incremental changes have seen us reduce our emissions and keep us on track to reach our net zero goal.
Offsetting and our plan to become net zero
Every year our environmental impact is recorded by the UKs leading carbon offsetting organisation, Carbon Neutral Britain. This tracking ensures we remain on target to reduce carbon emissions to meet our net zero, offsetting our emissions along the way.
We carefully selected Carbon Neutral Britain as our chosen climate change partner because all carbon offsetting projects supported by us through Carbon Neutral Britain are verified to the highest standards via the three largest Carbon Certifications in the world – the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS), Gold Standard Voluntary Emission Reductions (VER), and the United Nations Certified Emission Reductions (CER) programmes.
The international carbon credits used in our offsetting are also used by multinational organisations, and countries in their emission reduction schemes around the world – so we can be confident that we are supporting vital projects, with accurate emissions reductions.
Carbon Neutral Britain is one of the only organisations in the UK to offer Independent Validation and Assurance of each carbon offsetting project supported, completing due diligence on audits. This goes above and beyond the requirements of the United Nations CER, Verra, and Gold Standard Mechanisms. An Independent Validation completes 6 additional steps to provide further assurance over the quality of projects utilised by offsetting.
We love how transparent they are about their fees too. More than most other charities Carbon Neutral Britain ensure that 80% of the subscription we pay to them goes directly towards tree planting and offsetting projects, the remaining 20% is split equally between administrative costs, and on fundraising and marketing to help grow the number of customers and our combined efforts on climate change.
