A Few Steps Closer to Carbon Neutral
23rd Aug 2024
Here at Arcane we take environmental issues seriously. We’ve been busy making a number of changes to help reduce our carbon footprint and turn our company even greener.
Solar Panels
We are proud to announce that we’ve recently made the investment into solar energy and had 100 panels installed onto our roof. Not only will these panels allow us to reduce our carbon footprint 1, but they will also help us to offset some of our expenses, which in turn means better prices for our customers.
We know what you might be thinking, but the drizzly UK really does get enough sunshine to make solar powered energy a viable and worthwhile investment. You might be surprised to hear that the UK actually gets the same amount of solar energy as some parts of France, Germany and Spain, which is around 60% of the solar radiation found at the equator 2. You don’t actually need to have full on sunshine hitting the panels for them to work, although the more sunshine there is, the more power they will produce. But even on a cloudy day, solar panels can produce a significant amount of energy, largely because they use light to create electricity and not heat.
The positive environmental impact of solar powered energy is, of course one of the main reasons it’s growing in popularity. Solar energy is clean, renewable and does not cause air pollution or greenhouse gases whilst operating. It’s estimated that a solar power installation such as the one here at Arcane will become carbon neutral within 1- 3 years, making it a sound investment for the planet as well as our bottom line. We have been told to expect that our solar panels will be able to supply almost 50% of our total annual electricity usage and that’s not to be sniffed at!
Our investments haven’t stopped with solar panels;
Lighting
We’ve switched all of our lighting, throughout the building to LED. You may already know that LED bulbs don’t produce anywhere near the same amount of heat energy as incandescent bulbs, but did you also know that they are made from non-toxic materials and are 100% recyclable?
Vehicles
We are in the process of replacing our existing petrol and diesel fleet. We’ve opted for electrical vehicles as they don’t emit any greenhouse gasses and have a significantly reduced carbon footprint. We have charging stations on site so of course will be drawing a portion of their charging from our renewable energy sourced via the solar panels.
Mailing Wraps
We were one of the first mailing houses to offer a 100% compostable wrap and have now taken that one step further by investing in paper wrap for our enclosing station, meaning that we can produce a fully recyclable mailing pack. Now everyone can easily dispose of used mailing material in their household paper waste recycling.
Paper & Card
We now only use FSC accredited paper throughout our business. The Forest Stewardship Council certified forests are managed to strict environmental, social and economic standards. By choosing FSC papers we are supporting responsible sustainable forestry.
We continue to ensure that ALL of our paper and cardboard waste is recycled. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our environmental investments, we’d love to hear from you, so do send us and email or give us a call.