World Earth Day 2022: How can we invest in our planet?

The race to net zero is on. Friday 22nd April is World Earth Day 2022, a time to focus on how we can ‘Invest in Our Planet’ as individuals and as an organisation.

This year’s theme is designed to encourage us to implement more sustainable business practices. Liberty has a strong Environment Social Governance (ESG) policy in place to help combat the climate crisis.

Objectives include to be a carbon neutral business by 2035, create green collar roles within the business and source 80% of our electricity requirements from renewable resources by 2030.

Find out what else the business has achieved since the last World Earth Day below;

Electric vehicles

Last year we updated our 40-strong passenger car fleet to fully electric, with 29 plug-in-hybrid, hybrid, or mild-hybrids.

Earlier last month an order was made for 35 fully electric vans following successful trials in 2021. Liberty is getting ahead of the curve and is on track to complete its fleet vehicle electrification by 2027 – ahead of government deadlines.

Recently, 10 EV charging points were also installed in the staff carpark at Charley Wood Road

ISO 14001 accreditation renewed

This month, the business has retained is ISO 14001 accreditation following an audit report was completed by SOCOTEC, the leading provider of testing, inspection and certification services in Infrastructure, Environment & Safety, Environmental Science and Building & Real Estate sectors.

ISO 14001 relates to our environmental management systems (EMS); an international standard used to manage environmental aspects, fulfil compliance obligations, and address risks and opportunities.

Alongside this accreditation, Liberty also retained is ISO 9001 and ISO 45001 standards following more successful audit reports.

Crawley Borough Council & ForHousing decarb retrofits begin

In October 2021, Liberty and NetZero Collective (NZC) began retrofitting 8 properties with Crawley Borough Council. The retrofit work is expected to save 572 tonnes of CO2 by 2050, saving residents an average of £600 a year on their fuel bills.

Following the completion of the first few properties, all partners are in talks of further expanding the programme to include more properties.

Liberty is also set to begin retrofitting 71 bungalows in Salford with ForHousing. NZC has finished monitoring the properties in Irlam to determine how each property should be retrofitted (i.e heat pump, solar panels, battery storage) and works is about to commence.

This month, NZC and its industry partners Vaillant and Sunamp met with ForHousing tenants to discuss how the new technology will work and answer any questions they had.