Facilities & Sustainability Case Study: E.ON UK

EON is the UK's largest integrated energy suppliers, generating and distributing electricity, and retailing electricity and gas. E.ON UK is part of E.ON, the world's largest investor-owned power and gas company, headquartered in Germany.

The Retail business supplies electricity, gas and Home Energy Services to around six million homes and small businesses under the Powergen brand. We're also one of the main providers of energy to British industry, through the E.ON Energy brand.

Central Networks brings power to 4.9 million customers across central England through 133,000km of underground and overhead cables and 97,000 substations.

Involved in every link of the energy chain, Energy Wholesale creates and trades electricity for a lower carbon future, producing electricity from its portfolio of world-class power stations, researching new and renewable technologies.

Energy Services provides all the services needed to get connected to energy supplies and to understand energy use.

Business Services and the UK Corporate Centre provide key services for the whole of E.ON UK, delivering cost effective processes and vital functional support to over 50 sites using a shared services model. Facilities Management is a function within the Building Services department in Business Services.

For details of some of the sustainability activities that have been initiated by our energetic and engaged Facilities Team simply click on the links below.

1. New & Refurbished Buildings
2. Renewable energy
3. Recycling
4. Green Travel
5. Facilities as a role model to get employees involved and engaged

1. E.ON UK Building Services is on a roll

From new premises to refurbishments, E.ON UK Building Services haven’t stopped this year and, with the opening of Parklands in November 2006. The Parklands building, which replaces the former Manchester Road site, is now one of E.ON UK’s flagship offices. It’s located opposite Bolton Wanderers’ Reebok Stadium and boasts top class facilities such as a new restaurant, showers, relaxation areas and a prayer room.

Not only does it present a better working environment for Retail colleagues, E.ON UK Building Services ensured that Parklands incorporated energy efficient features such as:

• Low energy lighting;
• An air conditioning system that recovers heat;
• Furniture from sustainable sources;
• Motorcycle and bicycle shelters to encourage green travel; and
• A company bus.

The Business Services Programme Manager said: "Creating Parklands was a real team effort involving E.ON UK colleagues from Business Services, Retail and E.ON IS. Between us, we managed to get the new location up and running in record time and create a great new place to work for our colleagues in Bolton".

Entrance to Parklands & Parklands’ rest area

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2. Facilities renew their vows

The Facilities contracts team have pledged to contribute to carbon reduction by buying electricity from renewable sources.

E.ON UK’s Facilities team have been working with colleagues from E.ON Energy to upgrade 29 electricity contracts from renewable sources. For all of the electricity used at our major UK office sites we now purchase the equivalent amount of electricity from renewable sources, which includes power from hydro plants, solar power and wind farms.

Darren Box from the Facilities contracts team responsible for implementing this said: "This is a great example of E.ON demonstrating our commitment to lowering carbon emissions. Although we pay a slightly higher premium for renewable energy, this is largely offset by Climate Change Levy exemptions, and it fits with our aspirations of being low carbon leaders."

Facilities Manager Dominic Graham said: "I was delighted that we were able to make a sizable contribution to lowering our emissions. This, coupled with smart energy management across our sites, will have a great impact on lowering our carbon footprint."

Such measures will help make a key contribution to E.ON UK’s target of making a 10 per cent reduction this year in the carbon footprint from our non-operational businesses and is fully in line with our aim of being a low carbon leader.

These contracts alone will save over 18,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) being emitted – that equates to driving over 50 million miles in a petrol car. As remaining contracts come up for review, they will also be migrated to renewable energy, and each site will be awarded with a green energy certificate.

By 2010, 10 per cent of the electricity supplied in the United Kingdom must come from renewable sources; this will increase to 15 per cent by 2015 and 20 per cent by 2020. It’s a demanding target, considering that in 2003 renewables accounted for less than 4 percent of the UK’s electricity supply.

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3. The E.ON UK Facilities Team at Newstead Court in Nottinghamshire make recycling more colourful!

The Facilities team have been trialling a new colour coded recycling system for all waste at the Newstead site which is working well and has generated a lot of interest from colleagues in the building. All the desk bins have been removed, and they now just use the following colour coded bins for waste;

Yellow = Cans
Green = Bottles
Red = Paper Cups
Grey = General Waste
Becca Bins = Klix cups and Water cups
Blue = General Paper/Confidential bins

Simon Maingay, Facilities Manager for Newstead Court, said: “We’ve been trialling the scheme in our offices for over a month and it’s working really well. We have had some real interest and positive comments, and colleagues here at Newstead seem really keen for the scheme to roll it out to other sites.

"Apart from the obvious environmental and carbon footprint benefits, we’ve also found that we get up from our desks to walk to the bins more often, which contributes to our wellbeing."

Newstead Court is already undertaking several recycling activities, including turning waste oil into bio diesel, turning waste paper into toilet paper and printer toners are recycled and sold back to businesses, with a percentage of the profits donated to Marie Curie Cancer Care, the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and the RNIB. In addition, a new waste contract for recycling is predicted to save £1,000 per month at two major sites.

Posters and display boards developed by the Facilities team provide greater awareness to our staff at our sites about what can be recycled and how recycled materials can be created into new products (such as plastic cups becoming re-born as pens and pencils).

Suggestions about how to save energy at home as well as at work have been communicated across the business through the corporate intranet in daily news articles. For example, there was a focussed energy efficiency week campaign feature in October, with different stories from individuals around the company about how they save energy, avoid waste and are more sustainable both at home and in the office.

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4. Since 2000, Facilities have led the way in implementing Green Travel schemes throughout the company’s sites.

• Green travel booths have been set up at participating sites where employees can swipe their ID card to register their journey;
• Incentives are offered to employees who car share, cycle or take public transport; and
• Company bus services and shuttles have been provided to reduce the number of cars coming to site, reduce dependency on car use and to reduce on site parking pressures.

Green Travel Statistics, the story so far...

Totals:
3,131,442 miles saved.
754.6775 tons CO2 saved.
205.6418 tons Carbon saved.

Reducing the need for journeys even further...

An online meeting and interactive collaboration tool called Live meeting has also been piloted in the company. Staff are being trained and encouraged to use this tool as an alternative to making unnecessary journeys to meet colleagues.

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5. Low Carbon commitments

Thinking ‘sustainable’ is now snowballing throughout the business...

As a result of these initiatives pioneered by the Facilities team, other parts of the business have decided to fully participate in the good example set and follow suit.

• Following a suggestion from a procurement manager, a special “low carbon” screen saver was developed by the IT department that switches the screen into energy saving mode after 1 minute of screen inactivity, rather than the previous 7 minutes, and this has now been implemented at all our UK sites (over 50 offices) to over 14,000 staff;
• An accounting services manager used team briefing to focus on their team further reducing carbon by ensuring PCs are logged off every night and screens are switched off at the end of the day, and to do their bit in maximising their recycling in the special bins provided by Facilities;
• Over 2,300 colleagues made online low carbon pledges during Energy Efficiency Week in October 2006 through the Company Intranet;
• Energy efficient light bulbs were offered to those who made low carbon pledges and energy efficient appliances such as dishwashers and kettles could be won in an Energy Pledge prize draw;
• Our corporate office product supplier offers clearly indicates green and sustainable product choices, which can be ordered by staff online;
• Our procurement department now send over 90% of their orders electronically to suppliers rather than printing and posting them;
• Posters on the lifts suggest people use the stairs instead of using the lift, where possible to do so;
• The Facility team set up employee suggestion boxes in the office to involve employees in how to further improve site related services. In response to employee requests, some Fairly traded snack products have been offered as part of a special promotion through our catering facility, and investigations for a future Fair Trade awareness event is underway that could be showcased through the canteen marketplace area;
• As part of a wider low carbon initiative, Global Action Plan volunteer employee environmental champions are being sought from the business to be trained to actively develop a strategy to raise awareness and so encourage colleagues to think green. The environmental champions will get involved in the environmental decision making at work and be responsible for monitoring each site’s performance and in identifying possible alternatives solutions to our existing practices.

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