Blog: Delivering a smart sustainable energy future
When you bring up the topic of sustainability people often think about environmental sustainability – things like biodiversity and greenhouse gas emissions. While this is part of the story, we believe there’s a lot more to it than that.
At SSEN our staff are delivering sustainability every day. SSEN’s first priority is to safely deliver a robust, efficient and reliable network to our customers in the north of Scotland but in delivering this essential service, we also recognise we have a responsibility to our customers, employees, communities and shareholders to ensure this need is met in the most responsible and sustainable way possible. In short, sustainability to us is about delivering and maintaining our critical infrastructure to meet the needs of the present without compromising our (or other’s) ability to meet the needs of the future.
Over the last decade our focus has been investing in our network to support the decarbonisation of GB electricity supplies, and we are incredibly proud of our progress to date. Since 2005, the scale of generation connected in our area has more than doubled with our network now supporting over 5GW of clean renewable electricity. While enabling decarbonisation in pursuit of climate change goals is the most material contribution that we can make to sustainability, our economic, social and environmental impacts are also hugely significant.
Our experiences, and the insight provided by our stakeholders, highlight the need for us to expand our ambitions beyond standalone decarbonisation aims, and to ensure that our activities are mindful of other social, economic and environmental issues.
That’s why we’ve published our draft 2018 sustainability strategy and consultation. The report, Delivering a smart, sustainable energy future, provides a first view of SSEN’s sustainability ambitions and presents an opportunity for stakeholders to engage and directly influence the refinement these:
- Connecting for society – promoting affordability for our customers.
- Supporting thriving communities – maximising the local benefit of our developments.
- Growing careers – investing in and developing our people.
- Promoting the natural environment – protecting and promoting the natural environment.
- Mitigating climate change – tackling our own carbon emissions.
There’s a lot more detail on these ambitions in our strategy, including suggested targets and means of measuring our progress.
We believe our ambitions are bold, but achievable. What do you think?
The document and online feedback form can be found here.
Blog by Christianna Logan, Business Development Manager, SSEN