Environmental & Climate Impact
TOWARDS A BRIGHTER FUTURE
We have embraced a robust sustainability strategy, marked by significant investments and initiatives. Our transition to renewable energy is complete with a large-scale solar panel installation, ensuring our UK operations are powered by clean energy. Our corporate fleet is shifting to electric vehicles, with charging infrastructure in place. We're also collaborating on sustainable shipping solutions to further reduce our carbon footprint. Our dedication to the environment extends to enhancing biodiversity through rewilding efforts and aggressively pursuing the reduction of packaging waste. These steps reflect our collective responsibility towards a sustainable future.
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Roper Rhodes has aligned our environmental initiatives and goals with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 7, 13 and 15
SUSTAINABLE MARITIME FUELS
Together with our shipping partner, KWE, we at Roper Rhodes are making a significant investment and pioneering the use of Sustainable Maritime Fuels to reduce our freight emissions.
The collaboration focuses on the development and promotion of sustainable maritime fuel, a crucial step towards reducing maritime industry’s carbon footprint. This is the very first partnership of its kind and allows us to reduce CO2e emissions over a period of time according to our own climate ambitions.
We will continue to partner with KWE with the aim of ensuring a more sustainable supply chain now and in the future.
Solar Energy Initiatives
As part of our ongoing environmental commitment, we have made a substantial investment in installing large-scale solar panels at our Portbury Distribution Centre. Operational as of January 2023, the solar panels are now producing more green energy than the hub is consuming, with an unprecedented 333,368,312kwh generated to date, the carbon equivalent of 3,943 trees.
ECOVADIS SILVER AWARD
Sustainability
We are excited to announce that Roper Rhodes as part of the Svedbergs Group has received the EcoVadis Silver Medal for 2023, positioning us in the top 25% of companies globally in sustainability performance.
EcoVadis provides global business sustainability ratings, using a strong technology platform and a global expert team to offer detailed sustainability ratings for over 200 purchasing categories in more than 160 countries.
These ratings evaluate environmental, social, and ethical risks, based on standards like the Global Reporting Initiative, the United Nations Global Compact, and ISO 26000. EcoVadis is recognized for its reliable sustainability assessments, with over 75,000 participating companies across various industries.
Biodiversity
A rewilding initiative has been introduced by the Portbury site. This has resulted in new trees, shrubs, and pollinating flowers being planted to encourage insects to return to the area with the goal of attracting other wildlife.
Electric Vehicles
Following a successful trial, the majority of our fleet of company cars has now been transitioned to electric and hybrid vehicles, with charging points at both our Brassmill and Portbury sites. We have also run an innovative trial by adding a fully electric vehicle to our delivery fleet.
SUSTAINABLE PACKAGING
To address packaging use, a task force was established in 2020 with the sole purpose of reducing wasteful packaging across all our categories and, in particular, working towards eliminating the usage of all plastics and unnecessary materials.
Green house gas report
We report annually according to the GHG Protocol on our Scopes 1, 2, and 3. This allows us to identify the priority actions to reduce our climate impact.
