Pico Technology has long since tried to be environmentally friendly, but with the more recent IPCC and UN reports it became obvious that much more needed to be done. Taking the science, the threat of climate change and environmental biodiversity loss into account, we feel that it is more important than ever to act.
With this in mind, we have created an internal group called Pico Planet.
The group is interdepartmental and consists of volunteers with experience and know-how in going green. With the help of this group, we have set the following target: Becoming carbon neutral by 2030. We take this work very seriously and hope to become a blueprint that other businesses can follow.
The company will be monitoring, not just CO2 emissions (from business travel, energy usage in our buildings and the way our employees travel to work), but our water usage and waste management.
We will also be looking at how our products work, improving their efficiency and the materials used in their construction, as well as working towards recycling and reconditioning old products into new.
By doing this we’re aiming to decrease our company’s carbon footprint and encourage our employees to do the same, increase our competitive advantage and prepare for the inevitable government regulations.
Moving forward, we hope to develop ties with other local companies and organizations to create a movement of change; bringing every business’s environmental responsibilities to the forefront of the decision-making process.
| Area | 2019 | Target |
|---|---|---|
| Air travel + commuting | 285 t CO2 +235 t CO2 | 50% reduction by 2022, net-zero by 2025 |
| Energy usage | 85 t CO2 | Net-zero through green energy by 2020 |
| Freight | 58.7 t CO2 | Net-zero by 2025 |
| Business travel | 9.3 t CO2 | Net-zero by 2025 |
| Water | 838 000 l (about 220 000 US gal) |
25% of current use by 2025 |
| General waste | 238 000 l (about 63 000 US gal) |
50% reduction by 2022 |
| Recycling waste | 238 000 l | 50% reduction by 2022 |
| Marketing | Less printing Less plastic/single-use items More sustainable and reusable clothing |
75% reduction by 2022 |
We are working on improving our products’ energy consumption during use. This will be beneficial for the environment as well as for our users.
We have also created a concept that we call “Thursdays for our futures” where we aim to reduce our car park space requirements by 50%. This can be achieved by staff using the following methods:
We hope for this to become a weekly event by the end of 2020.
During 2018, Pico was planning to start work on building a new Global HQ just outside of Cambridge in the UK. However, with more and more focus on the environment and, of course, with 50% of global emissions being due to our built environment, we decided to grow our business by using a unit that became vacant next to our current HQ in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire. By doing this, we use the embedded emissions of a current building as well as the opportunity to vastly improve the insulation and efficiency of our current HQ.
We have added a tree planting/conservation charity to the list of charities to which we donate.