For some companies, a Carbon Reduction Plan is a tick-box compliance exercise that is left to languish in an obscure folder. For Parallax, it was a guide to a brighter, lower emissions future.
We calculated Parallax’s Carbon Footprint using a combination of survey responses, electricity consumption data and accounting data. This created a baseline against which future emissions reductions efforts will be measured.
Our analysis of the breakdown of emissions by source revealed that the greatest opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions lay in reducing the consumption of grid electricity at Parallax’s Leeds HQ.
We visited Parallax’s offices and discussed opportunities for emissions reductions with Parallax’s CFO Lawrence Dudley. Lawrence told us about the huge strides already taken to improve energy efficiency: motion sensors had been fitted to alarms, warm air from the server room was being recirculated to the office space and submeters installed to help identify further inefficiencies. These steps to improve energy efficiency will be reflected as reductions in Parallax’s Scope 2 emissions in their second annual Carbon Footprint.
We then headed up to the roof to make an initial assessment of its suitability for solar panels. The flat roof is home to a number of air vents and HVAC equipment, but still has plenty of space in the sun for a mounted solar array to be installed. So solar panels were added to the list of recommendations in Parallax’s Carbon Reduction Plan.
Back in the office, we compiled a list of the steps already taken and our recommendations and calculated the annual emissions saving potential and plotted this over a 10 year horizon. This Carbon Reduction Plan showed that Parallax has the potential to reduce its Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 85% over the next 10 years by taking simple steps to improve energy efficiency, installing solar panels and benefiting from the planned decarbonisation of the UK’s electricity grid.
A year later, Lawrence got in touch to ask for our support in applying for grant funding from West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) to help cover the cost of solar installation. WYCA needed to see three quotes for comparable systems in order to award the funding and Lawrence just didn’t have the bandwidth on top of running a successful business. We contacted solar installers from our network of trusted suppliers and worked with them to ensure they had all the information they needed to provide comparable quotes.
"IEC have been really good, they're agile enough to be able to take on the elements of our Carbon Reduction Plan at short notice that we struggle to do in-house and their skillset is much wider than just running some numbers through a spreadsheet. This has made a challenging (to us!) solar install so much easier." ~ Lawrence Dudley, CFO at Parallax
Airis Energy Solutions has been chosen to carry out the installation and Innovative Energy Consultants is continuing to provide project management services to arrange crane hire and permitting and to ensure that Airis have access to everything they need. Installation is planned for summer 2024 and will reduce Parallax’s annual Carbon Footprint by up to 6 tonnes/year.
Find out how Parallax used their Carbon Reduction Plan as a guide to take action and access grant funding to install solar to reduce their emissions and energy bills.
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