Wilson Vale’s headquarters achieve Carbon Neutral status in the contract caterer’s drive for sustainable working. The national contract caterer has become one of the first catering companies in the country to gain certified carbon neutral status for scope 1 and 2 emissions. Covering its head office and operational support teams the carbon neutral status forms an important part of its ongoing Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy.

The company, headquartered in Leicestershire, has introduced a range of measures to reduce its emissions, including having installed solar panels at its head office in 2018, a state-of-the-art Daikin heat-pump climate control system with invertor technology, no gas supply and six electric car chargers to power up its electric company cars. Well on its way to running a fully electric fleet, a third of its company cars are already all electric and the rest hybrid; with Wilson Vale targeting the end of 2024 for all its vehicles to be electric only.

Graeme Watson, ESG Director at Wilson Vale, commented: “There are three Scopes for emissions categorised by the UK government for Net Zero commitments. Our environmental projects planned years ago have now put us ahead of the curve, making it relatively easy to become Carbon Neutral for Scopes 1 and 2 with minimal offsetting of our residual carbon emissions.

The small amount of carbon credits used for offsetting support a range of environmental projects, including Kariba REDD+, a forest protection and community support project in Zimbabwe.

Graeme added; “We are delighted and proud to have achieved this – it is testament to our strong core environmental ethos since our inception twenty years ago. In future years, the aim is to drive down the few carbon credits required so that our offsetting is as low as it can possibly be.

“On Scope 3, we are looking at more initiatives that we can collaborate on with our supply network and our client sites to tip the scales – virtually all Scope 3 emissions fall out of our immediate control though we can have a positive influencing factor.

“We are excited to have begun our journey to Net Zero, a destination we hope to reach by 2045 and we look forward to continuing our efforts as a green organisation”