Step 1 - We're now carbon neutral

At Ocean, we have always strived to ensure that our actions have a positive impact on both our customers and our wonderful city. As part of our ongoing efforts, we recently focused our attention on our impact on the environment and we are delighted to announce that we are now carbon neutral.

Over the years Bristol has been seen as a 'green powerhouse of the UK' being named Britain’s first cycling city in 2008 and then, in 2015, being given the title of European Green Capital. In November 2018, councillors at Bristol City Council voted unanimously to support a motion that committed the city to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2030. With dangerous levels of air pollution and a well-documented congestion problem, there is still a long way to go to meet this target. As mayor Marvin Rees put it “We need our city to come together like never before".

Understanding our impact on the environment

In order to begin reducing our impact on the environment, we needed to work out what our overall carbon footprint actually was. In 2021 we commissioned a full and comprehensive 'carbon audit' of all of the companies that form the Ocean Property Services Group.

We appointed Carbon Footprint Ltd, a company that uses its expertise to analyse an organisation’s operations and calculate its total carbon footprint. A highly reputable company, Carbon Footprint Ltd has provided its services to many recognisable organisations such as Pfizer, Ikea and even the UK Government helping them offset their emissions to a gold standard. 

Ocean's Carbon footprint

Over several months of working with Carbon Footprint Ltd gathering data for our previous financial year, we have now received the results! The audit confirmed that in 2019-20 our total greenhouse gas emissions stood at 104 tCO2e. This means tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is a way to combine carbon dioxide together with other greenhouse gases such as methane. For any amount and type of greenhouse gas, CO2e means the amount of CO2 that would have the equivalent impact on global warming.

Here are the results - CFP appraisal report  An important goal for us as we embark on our sustainability journey is transparency. Please take a look at our full audit, and learn how you or your business may like to commission a similar report. By far, Ocean’s biggest impact on the environment was shown to be our electricity usage (50.9%) and secondly our gas (31.9%). Due to the nature of our business, our emissions directly related to our site operations were always going to be the biggest contributing factor to our overall environmental impact.

Reducing our impact

We have taken steps to immediately reduce our overall impact by 50% by instructing a Bristol-based company, Unyfi, to consolidate our existing electricity tariffs to electricity generated purely by renewable sources and provided by Ecotricity. Unyfi has also helped us switch our gas to a tariff that provides gas predominantly from anaerobic digestion of food waste. 

Following the audit results, we have also instructed Carbon Footprint Ltd to offset our total CO2e emissions to zero. We’ve done this through supporting a UK Tree Planting Project. And with the UK Tree Planting Project, Carbon Footprint Ltd plants trees in the Amazon as part of their Tree Buddying initiative. We have also now registered as members of the Bristol Green Capital Partnership 

Why are we sharing this information?

We are proud to say that this is not 'greenwash', we are learning and adapting as quickly as possible. We are by no means satisfied with offsetting our carbon and leaving it there. This is the start of our journey to improve how we operate to reduce the impact our business has on the environment and our community. Paul Harris MD. Ocean property services group.

This is the start of our journey to improve how we operate and reduce our impact. More to follow...

Tue 23 Nov 2021