Company’s comprehensive carbon plan aligned to raising of £300 million bond investment
Anglian Water has published a route map which sets out how the company will reach net zero carbon by 2030.
The net zero target will cover all of the company’s operational activities and those of its supply chain, as well as a commitment to cut capital carbon by 70 per cent against a 2010 baseline.
Last month, the water company made financial history when it became the first utility in the world to launch a sustainability-linked bond connected directly to achieving its interim carbon targets.
By 2025, Anglian has committed to reduce capital carbon by 65 per cent from a 2010 baseline, and operational carbon by 30% from 2018/19 levels as part of its journey to reach net zero.
In 2020, the water industry of England and Wales became the first sector worldwide to work collaboratively on a route map to reach net zero within the decade, with each company expected to publish their individual plans this month.
Anglian’s route map is centred around several key areas of work and outlines the targets the company will reach by 2030. Each year the company will reduce its carbon emissions, and by 2030 its operational emissions will have reduced by over 70 per cent against a 2018/19 baseline – a reduction of over 250,000 tonnes, or the equivalent of filling 55,000 hot air balloons.
CEO Peter Simpson said: “We are accelerating our progress to net zero and setting out the pathway that will get us there by 2030, based on our three-step hierarchy of reducing emissions, decarbonising our electricity supply and removing or offsetting our residual emissions.
“It won’t be easy – in fact it will be incredibly challenging and we don’t have all the answers. Finding and delivering them is going to take sustained and genuinely collaborative efforts throughout the coming years, not just from us but from our supply chain, our peers, from government and from regulators too.”
