Shred Station becomes lifetime carbon neutral

This year, Shred Station has been working with Climate Impact Partners and Nature Positive (an RSK company) to assess our historic carbon emissions.

Shred Station was formed in 2008, and a core pillar of our ethos has always been to minimise our environmental impacts. In 2019, we achieved annual CarbonNeutral® company certification for the first time. We have maintained this certification every year since – something we’re incredibly proud of. This was made possible by efforts across the business to reduce internal emissions wherever possible. For the emissions we are not yet able to reduce, we offset our residual footprint through verified projects that work towards a minimum of three Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

An image showing the timeline of Shred Station's landmark achievements. This includes depot openings, fleet growth, acquisitions, and eco efforts.

To go one step further than annual carbon neutrality, in 2023 our senior management team decided that the time was right to assess our historic emissions. This assessment is now complete.

Lifetime carbon neutral

Climate Impact Partners and Nature Positive assessed all the emissions we produced from our formation in 2008 to 31^st December 2017. Once complete, the companies generated a comprehensive report detailing all Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions in our footprint as required by The Carbon Neutral Protocol.

Initially, we had aimed to complete the offsetting for these historic emissions by 2030. Instead, in 2024, we offset these emissions in their entirety through stringently verified emission reduction projects that work towards SDGs. This includes supporting a wind farm in Turkey and an afforestation project in Uruguay.

Images from our carbon offsetting project partners' sites

Note: The reason our historic assessment only covers until 31^st December 2017 is because 2018 onwards is covered by our 2019/20/21/22/23/24 annual CarbonNeutral® company and fleet certifications.

How do carbon offsetting projects work?

Carbon offsetting works by supporting, buying, or investing in emission reduction projects or verified carbon credits to balance out emissions produced. As an example, you might want to offset one tonne of carbon. To do that, you purchase a carbon credit from an afforestation project. The project has planted an area of trees and cares for them as they grow. Periodically, they measure the carbon sequestered by the trees and, once this is verified, issue carbon credits equal to the carbon stored. Your credit purchase corresponds to one of the tonnes of CO2e the trees have drawn down from the atmosphere, and effectively pays back the investment the project partner originally made to plant and look after the trees. Thus, your one tonne of carbon is offset.

We know that, on its own, carbon offsetting isn’t enough. That’s why we do everything possible to reduce our own emissions, only using offsetting as a last resort. For example, our largest emission source is, and historically has been, our fleet. Our fleet is CarbonNeutral® certified, but we also take many steps to reduce our fleet emissions.

We are reducing our fleet emissions by:

Using Euro 6 Low Emission trucks. These use Selective Catalytic Reduction and AdBlue to keep emissions as low as possible. In fact, our truck emissions are so low that over 95% of our fleet is free to drive in London’s ULEZ.
Using HVO in our fuel mix. Every litre of HVO produces around 88.3% less emissions per litre than diesel, so by using HVO we can significantly reduce emissions.
Replacing six of our diesel forklifts with fully electric models. This change is saving us around 62,400 litres of diesel every year.
Swapping our company cars for hybrid or fully electric models.
Providing EV charging at each of our sites to support our team and visitors in their own transition to electric vehicles.
Trialling fully electric trucks including the DAF LF, the Volvo EFE and the Volta Zero.

There are also many other ways we reduce company emissions, from using renewable power to being a Zero to Landfill business. So, if you’re looking for a shredding service provider that can help you achieve your ESG goals, look no further than Shred Station.