Our planet

As of 1 April 2025, Grundon is powered by 100% renewable electricity from the National Grid. This marks a another milestone moment in our sustainability journey and a pivotal step towards achieving our goal of being net-zero by 2040.

This change has a direct impact on our Scope 2 emissions. By switching to SmartestEnergy, a 100% renewable electricity supplier, we can now guarantee that every kilowatt-hour (kWh) of grid electricity used at our sites is matched and bought from green sources like wind, solar or water energy. We also receive UK-recognised Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO) certificates, confirming the renewable source of electricity and underlining our commitment to responsible energy consumption.

As a result, Grundon can now confidently report zero market-based Scope 2 emissions.

We began 2024 with a £6.5 million investment in decarbonising our vehicle fleet and followed that up with a £750,000 investment to install the latest driver training technology.

Together, these combined efforts have delivered impressive results – 2024 saw a 342% increase in the number of kilometres travelled by our electric waste collection vehicles (EVs) versus the year before.

These figures computed to a trebling of fuel savings of over 300% – in 2023 our EVs saved the equivalent of 10,629 litres of diesel and in 2024 that rose to 32,629 litres of diesel saved.

Overall, for every kilometre travelled per litre of diesel, there has been a year-on-year increase of 11% – partly due to the increased distance travelled by the EVs and partly as a result of improved driving standards which helped boost fuel efficiency.

Those improvements are also due in no small measure to 2024’s fleet-wide rollout of the Samsara Connected Operations Platform, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) led driver safety programme.

Looking ahead, we’re planning further investment to expand our EV fleet, including electrifying our rolonofs, skip vehicles and articulated tractor units; and additional training for our in-house team of EV mechanics and engineers.

In 2024, Grundon celebrated 10 years of its CarbonNeutral® fleet certification programme.

Across those 10 years, our commercial fleet, as well as company cars and vans, have travelled over 61 million miles, enabling us to offset the equivalent of over 115,000 tonnes of carbon and help make a real difference to communities around the world.

Our carbon offsetting programme has helped support communities around the world, from Guatemala and India, to Uganda and Kenya. We’ve helped deliver community reforestation and water infrastructure programmes, focused on renewable energy projects and enabled skills training for local people.

Across Uganda, Kenya and India, over 75,000 efficient cookstoves have been delivered to the heart of communities, helping improve the wellbeing of families and reducing indoor pollution.

And in Guatemala, we’ve enabled the installation of 16 wind turbines, generating over 700,000 MWh of clean energy for the grid.

At our headquarters in Benson, Oxfordshire, we’ve installed a 100kw solar panel system.

During the summer months, the system supplies 100% of the energy required for the majority of the working day – this includes powering the office and charging EVs!

Across the entire year, the system is capable of providing around a third of the office’s energy consumption – and even more if the sun keeps shining!

Within the first few months, these roof-mounted solar photovoltaic panels delivered a remarkable 20-30% reduction in our normal energy grid consumption.

Periodically, we expect to generate enough energy for our HQ to be self-sufficient and be able to export excess electricity to the National Grid.

In summer 2023, we unveiled our new electric waste collection vehicles (EVs) – achieving what at the time was an industry-first, by powering one directly by electricity generated from the customer waste we collect.

Our Colnbrook depot is now home to two LGV EVs which, after depositing the non-recyclable waste from their daily collection rounds into our Energy from Waste (EfW) facility, simply plug in to the EfW to recharge ready for the next day.

For every tonne of waste deposited, around 620kWh of power is generated and, given that each collection is around five tonnes of waste per round, it means each vehicle delivers enough fuel to generate 3,100kWh of energy per day. That’s enough to power an average-sized house for a year, as well as charging the vehicles themselves.

We now have a total of six LGV EVs across our operating area and we’re investing around £6.5 million a year to further decarbonise our vehicle fleet so we can deliver ever more sustainable waste collections for our customers.

Grundon invested £2.5m in a private wire from Lakeside Energy from Waste facility to create a fully electrified treatment process for refuse derived fuel (RDF). The new infrastructure is expected to save over 700 tonnes of CO2e emissions per year.

In 2023, Grundon committed to supplying 100,000 tonnes per year of RDF to a local Energy from Waste facility, allowing it to be diverted from landfill.

Conventionally, the treatment of waste into a suitable fuel is carried out using diesel powered equipment, however, this was identified as a significant decarbonisation opportunity.

With limited grid capacity available, Grundon invested in a private wire and an electrified treatment process, which ensures that the whole waste-fuel treatment process is itself powered by energy derived from waste.

The new infrastructure is not only expected to deliver significant carbon savings, but it has also enabled future decarbonisation projects on site.