Our environmental impact for 2022
We want to be considerate of our environmental impact - we care about the footprint us and our members. We have worked with our Landlord and the Zero Emissions Network to drive Energy efficiency improvements and Waste reduction programs in our building.
Our environmental impact is measured from October 2021 – October 2022. In this time we have moved premises from Pentonville Road to our current home on Carnegie Street.
Energy Usage
We monitor and record our energy usage. For half of our reporting year Bulb was our energy provider, a green energy provider that sources energy from renewable resources and offsets other emissions. For the second half of the year in our new location our energy provider is British Gas, who source 48% of energy from renewable sources.
Electricity
(Total 42.55GJ)
Renewable sources 82% = 34.7GJ
Non-renewable sources 18% = 7.85GJ
November 2021 - June 2022 100% of our electricity was sourced from from renewable sources - wind, hydro and solar power in the breakdown shown at bulb.co.uk/fuelmix/
We estimate our electricity usage for the past year to be a total 11820kwh which equals 42.55 gigajoules (very similar to our previous year of 11681 kWh/42.05 gigajoules).
Gas
(Total 27.12 GJ)
Green Gas 3% = 0.81GJ
Carbon Offsets 96% = 26.03GJ
Our gas is 100% carbon neutral. Around 3% of gas our supplier bought was from renewable sources like food or farm waste. The rest was offset by supporting carbon reduction projects around the world.
The amount of gas we consumed this year was significantly smaller to the year before as we moved locations to an electricity only building.
We estimate the amount of gas used in the past year to be 7533.45kwh (27.12 gigajoules).
Facility energy efficiency
When purchasing equipment, we strive to purchase Energy Star Appliances / equipment with Automatic Sleep Modes / After-Hour Timers / etc.
We have smart heaters installed and use smart plugs to manage turning off electrical equipment overnight or when the building is not in use.
Waste disposal
We recycle paper, cardboard and plastic with Islington Council. In the past 12 months we estimate we produced:
35035kg of general waste
47190kg of recycling
Water usage
Castle Water provide our water, in the past 12 months we estimate we used approx. 320.08m3 of water, down from the previous year where we estimated our usage at 442.67m3.
All Saints strip out
In the past year we took on All Saints church and restored the church hall into our new coworking home. We used local suppliers and contractors and estimate we used 2.6GJ electrics to strip out, and produced 12 tonnes of waste from the outgoing tenant, and 4 tonnes from ARK moving in.
Reducing our environmental impact
Our policy
ARK’s environmental policy can be found at www.arkcoworking.com/environmentalpolicy
Read more on Our Impact pages
Resources
We encourage our employees and members to reduce our impact on the environment where possible.
For ideas to help be greener at home see: www.greenmatch.co.uk/blog/how-to-be-more-eco-friendly
Government advice on improving building energy efficiency: www.gov.uk/improve-energy-efficiency