Thursday 4 June 2020
British Gas Business ‘remains totally committed to a net zero future’
That's the suggestion from Gab Barbaro, the energy giant's Managing Director, who spoke to future Net Zero Founder Sumit Bose to discuss the company's existing commitment to entirely decarbonise by 2050 and its vision of delivering net zero.
Mr Barbaro noted that parent company Centrica currently produces around 80% less carbon emissions than it did a decade ago, and notes the firm's internal carbon footprint is 40% reduced in terms of property emissions.
He stated the business was already committed to decarbonisation before the pandemic and resulting lockdown and emphasised that this clean progress will continue into the future.
The Managing Director suggested discretionary travel will probably reduce, as the lockdown period has proved that different working practices can be highly effective, and added the firm's engineer fleets will move towards electric mobility, with the company already having placed 75 charging points across its office car parks.
He said: "So a lot of those things are moving in that direction, so I think from our perspective, nothing changes other than our appetite to maybe push a bit faster than we would have."
British Gas Business is already working with its supply chains and customers to help them be more energy-efficient, change usage patterns, bring in more renewable technologies, adopt electric vehicles and reduce overall demand, as well as supply them with green energy.
Mr Barbaro told future Net Zero: "Centrica are one of, if not the largest provider of PPAs in the UK, and that's Power Purchase Agreements with large solar, large wind farms, and we can bring that and sleeve that into our energy supply arrangements."
He highlighted that they can support customers to reach net zero, by putting together an ‘energy pathway’ package to help customers build their own clean capability, provide the necessary expertise and guarantee an outcome in terms of energy cost savings.
