WHY?
Eighty percent of primary energy consumption is from fossil fuels with fossil fuel companies publishing clear plans for expansion beyond existing reserves. Shell alone will increase oil production by an additional 1,000 litres a second in 2024. The great majority of current fossil fuel reserves will need to remain unburned if the emissions targets set in the Paris Agreement (now themselves shown to be wholly incompatible with remaining below 1.5oC temperature rise from preindustrial) are to be met. Yet oil and gas infrastructure is already in place to extract fossil fuel which, when burned, will produce three times as many CO2 emissions as are consistent with this target. Worse, oil and gas companies have published plans to extract even more fossil fuel than this, and continue to invest billions of dollars in more oil and gas infrastructure and extraction, and vastly less in low-carbon energy.
Moving away from use of coal, oil and gas is as important as the investment in the producers of it. The energy market offers a broad spectrum of power products which can vary in their demonstrable, renewable credentials.
HOW?
Where the organisation has control over its power supply, move to a 100% renewable power supplier. Organisations such as Ecotricity, Good Energy, and Octopus offer power supplies which are from 100% renewable sources. Large single organisations (or some ‘clubbing together’) can negotiate a Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) (in essence, owning the windfarm/ solar park). There are advisors who can assist with PPA sourcing such as EY, KPMG, Pexapark, Akereos and others.
Where possible, move to air-source heating, install solar panels and batteries, and remove gas stoves/boilers.