Those purchasing electricity via the Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certification scheme under a green tariff can more or less eliminate Scope 2 emission.

There is a long list of things we can do to reduce energy and carbon emission without spending much time or money. Most rely on evolving the culture of the whole team to energy conservation, building awareness, and ensuring we turn things off when not in use.

But what about other initiatives, ideas, and solutions. They say creativity only emerges once you have mastered the medium of your work, and as most of us have, we hold the ability to think about and plan the future with imagination and wisdom.

The past can also act as an insight to the future. In the 1950s and 60s, the UK had the most electric vehicles on the road in the world, in the shape of 70,000 milk floats. And we used to recycle nearly everything, even getting money back in some cases.
Some of you will remember when it was possible to air dry paint when spraying vehicles, often leaving them to dry overnight and polish the next day. Easier in the summer when it was warmer, and we all know this ambient cure process is still possible.

A few years ago, a bodyshop with two spray boxes with rails into a two bay bake box, operating two shifts a day between 7am and midnight, were able to eliminate gas usage to the bake box completely and achieve a weekly gas reduction of 50%.
Naturally, this involved the use of different paint – basecoat and clear – with lower gas reduction experience in the winter months, but significant, and low cost to introduce.

We hope to share many more ideas and initiatives over the coming weeks and months.
In the meantime, good luck with your endeavours.