Energy

We’re continually improving our energy use, and aim to become Net Zero Carbon, for our Scope 1 and 2 emissions, by 2030.

It’s a tall order but we’re committed. To help, we’re getting all our energy from renewable sources and dramatically cutting energy waste. 

Cutting energy waste and going renewable 

The UK government has committed making Britain a net-zero nation by 2050. To support that, we’re committed to making our own direct operations at Hotel Chocolat net zero by 2030.  
This ambitious goal is now part of our Planet Pledge. To reach that target, we’ve been looking at every aspect of energy use across our business to cut waste and carbon emissions. Here are some of the changes we’ve made so far. 

• We achieved the biggest reduction in our carbon emissions by making sure all of our electricity comes from renewable sources – 75% wind and 25% biomass. 
• We’ve installed new energy efficient LED lighting and cooling chillers across our retail stores and run an internal ‘Switch It Off’ campaign to remind our teams to think about energy usage.
• We’ve set up an Environmental Management System to help us keep track of our energy use across all our manufacturing and retail sites. 
• It helps that we need to carefully control the temperature in our stores to preserve our chocolates – so we never waste energy by overheating! 
• We’ve also reduced the amount of business travel we do, taking more of our meetings online. 

Decoding the jargon: 

What’s ‘Net Zero’?

We’ve all heard the phrase, but what exactly does it mean?   To stop climate change, we have to stop increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. But it can be difficult to reduce all emissions to zero. We can make up for this by taking an equal amount of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere to balance the total to ‘net zero’. 
It’s like filling a bath and making sure the tap doesn’t run any faster than the amount running out of the plughole. 
There are many ways do this, some of which are natural, like planting trees and restoring coastal habitats and peat bogs. Others involve technology that is still being developed, like carbon capture and storage and direct air capture.  
The Paris Agreement aims to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius and preferably 1.5C above the pre-industrial average temperature. Doing this will need ‘negative emissions’ even after the world reaches net zero, using the same methods to take excess CO2 out of the atmosphere. 

What’s an ‘Environmental Management System’? 

It sounds like it comes in a box, but an Environmental Management System is really just a clever how-to framework that helps businesses plan all the steps they need to follow to become more environmentally friendly: 

• First, analysing what kind of environmental impact they’re having 
• Establishing clear goals for minimising it and becoming more sustainable 
• Putting processes in place to reach those goals 
• Monitoring how they’re doing and continually improving with new goals 

What’s ISO 14001? 

The ISO 14001 is the top internationally recognised standard for Environmental Management Systems, with rigorous certification criteria established by the International Organisation for Standardisation. This helps businesses make sure their environmental policies are effective and legally compliant and not just ‘greenwashing’.  

Find more detailed information about our Ethical and Environmental sustainability data from FY 2021/2022 here.