Dulas Sustainability Project Manager Louise Skipton-Carter lecturing at the University of Sussex. The students will gain real-life industrial experience by exploring the sustainability of Dulas’s solar vaccine refrigerators.

Since Dulas signed up to the UN Race to Zero campaign, we have been working hard to understand what we need to do to turn this ambition into action.

We see climate change as one of the most pressing concerns in the world today, and it is essential that urgent and meaningful action is taken by everyone now to minimise, or better still avoid, its impacts.

We thought it could be valuable to share our journey so far for the benefit of others considering embarking on the same journey.

Dulas ‘Race to Zero’ pledges

Halve our greenhouse gas emissions before 2030

Achieve net zero emissions before 2050

Disclose our progress on a yearly basis

Formulating the action plan

After undertaking a baseline carbon inventory, we were very keen to take action to start reducing our carbon emissions as quickly as possible. We developed a Net Zero Action Plan to help us achieve our goals, and as an employee-owned company, this was actively discussed amongst our members and signed off in December 2022. Employee commitment is vital to us achieving our goals – our net zero ambitions are now incorporated into our Company Purpose and Values, which are supported by all our members, including our Board of directors. Achieving Net Zero before 2050 is something we know will not be easy, but we all want to work towards.

Dedicating resource

Our Net Zero Action Plan sets out some specific policy measures for implementation and our carbon reduction trajectory – the reductions required for each year to 2030 and 2050. We quickly recognised that embracing our Net Zero goal wholeheartedly would require creating a dedicated role and hiring someone with the skills and experience to help us do this. In 2023 we recruited a Sustainability Project Manager, Louise Skipton-Carter. Louise has a Masters in Sustainable Design from the University for the Creative Arts and is an experienced project manager with skills spanning sustainability, technical and behaviour change programmes. Most recently, she has worked in sustainability and climate response for local authorities and sustainable transport for Sustrans. She’s been looking more closely at our environmental management and how we can further accelerate our emissions reductions.

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Hiring Louise was an essential part of our Net Zero Action Plan. Louise was working in sustainability in local government back in 2008 when local authorities were writing their first climate change policies, so she is no stranger to the challenges facing any company looking to get to Net Zero. On top of having the skills and experience to help us on this journey, she also has the energy and enthusiasm, and shares our sense of how important and urgent it is to limit climate change – for people and for planet

Ruth Chapman
Managing Director, Dulas

We are making progress

There are obvious measures that are relatively easy to take, such as switching to LED light bulbs and signing up to a green energy tariff, but after this low-hanging fruit has been picked, it really makes sense to focus on the areas where the greatest reductions can be made. For Dulas, as for many others, these key areas are utilities within buildings and transport, and Louise has been homing in on these areas:

We have recently completed a buildings efficiency survey because, based on the energy hierarchy, it makes sense to look first at reducing use.

We have replaced a number of diesel vehicles with an EV pool car. In 2023, this electric vehicle covered nearly 8000 miles and saved two tonnes of carbon.

We conducted a staff commuting survey to better understand the motivations behind journey decisions and explore how to help staff make less impactful travel choices.

We have developed our own travel carbon calculator for staff so that they can choose the least impactful way to travel to sites or meetings.

We’re also actively looking at other options to reduce emissions from travel, including a slow travel policy. For example, in 2023 two members of our Solar International team travelled to the AidEx exhibition in Geneva by train, rather than by plane.

We’re also encouraging anyone scheduling meetings to do so around the train/bus timetable to make using public transport more amenable.

Embracing Net Zero wholeheartedly

Some of these measures don’t always feel comfortable, but it’s important to note that the challenges involved are not insurmountable. Others require a bit of patience and determination to work around them!

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Tackling transport emissions, and in particular emissions from vehicles, is not going to be easy, as we rely heavily on diesel 4x4s for accessing rugged remote terrain. There is currently no electric 4×4 on the market that would be suitable. But new models are in the pipeline and will hit the market within the next couple of years. This gives us confidence that we will be able to meet our commitment to fully convert our fleet to zero emissions by 2030. We will confirm our vehicle replacement roadmap in 2024. In the meantime, we are focusing on reducing the amount we travel, and if we do need to, then re-thinking the way we do it.

Louise Skipton-Carter
Sustainability Project Manager

Inspiring others

Part of our commitment to Race to Zero is spreading the word about the campaign, encouraging others to join in, and supporting those who want to pursue careers in renewable energy industries. Louise has been involved in a number of different projects focusing on sustainability at universities, most recently at the University of Sussex. Students on the ‘Sustainability in Engineering’ module will gain real-life industrial experience by exploring the sustainability of Dulas’s solar vaccine refrigerators. To start the project, the students were given a tour of Polestar Cooling’s factory where the Dulas solar vaccine refrigerators are manufactured. Louise then gave a lecture to the students on campus to launch the industrial case study. The students will study how the refrigerators are manufactured and propose options for reducing their product carbon footprint by considering the environmental impacts of materials and components, the manufacturing processes and end-of-life options. As a graduate mechanical engineer herself, Louise is excited to be able to support the next generation of engineers in this way and looks forward to seeing their ideas.

We are a body of people who care about the environment and we recognise that we have an important role to play, both with the products and services we supply, and the way in which we carry out our business activities to produce them. With over 40 years of experience as a pioneer of renewable energy engineering, we are fully focussed on our part in national and global emissions reduction.

To achieve real change, ‘Race to Zero’ needs as many signing up as possible – we all need to take immediate and rigorous action.

To find out about best practice, show your commitment, and play a part in climate action, visit UN Race to Zero campaign website:

https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/system/race-to-zero/

For UK SMEs who wish to sign up to Race to Zero, visit:

https://smeclimatehub.org/