Carbon dioxide is the most harmful greenhouse gas. As we attempt to contain the emissions, we contribute to the quest to save our climate. Nowy Styl assumes responsibility for its emissions and engages in activities to ensure more sustainable productions and products. In 2020 we reduced the CO2 emissions by more than we had initially planned.
Since 2019 Nowy Styl has been using CO2 Performance Ladder, a Dutch system supporting sustainable development. It’s popular among companies that want to reduce their CO2 emissions. In line with this methodology, we define the flow of energy and CO2 emissions to calculate our carbon footprint for Nowy Styl in Poland, Germany and the Netherlands.
We have also defined specific goals for the reduction process - we want to reduce CO2 emissions by 2.1% each year, until 2025, which means we will have reduced our carbon footprint by a total of 15% when compared to 2018. What is important, we calculate those figures by referring the value of emission to the annual revenue, so as to reflect the dynamics of our company.
Nearly 50% of direct emissions (Scope 1) is related to energy consumption by production plants in Poland, which use the energy from their own installations. Production plants and offices in Germany account for 40% of direct emissions. Main sources of emissions include gas boilers or biomass heating in the wood processing plant. Over the years we’ve been engaged in a continuous effort to make our production plants energy-efficient. We have also given up on coal-fired devices. 5% of direct emissions is the result of fuel consumption, that’s why we are now in the process of assembling a new car fleet composed of electric and hybrid vehicles.
Indirect emissions (Scope 2) are mainly related to electricity consumption by production plants and offices in Poland and Germany. With each year we are increasing the share of energy obtained from renewable sources (in 2020 - 3000 MWh from biomass). We also try to make the heating in our offices energy-efficient and we modernise the lighting systems (in 2020 a relevant project was implemented in the Armchair and Chair Production Plant in Jasło). Business flights normally account for 4% of our indirect emissions. In 2020 there were fewer flights than before (ca. 2%) because of the pandemic, but in an effort to cut down on business trips even further, we are promoting the use of a video-call system.
Many initiatives completed in 2019-2020 produced impressive results – in 2020 our emissions in Scope 1 and 2 were by 26% lower than in 2018.
Exceeding the target does not mean we slow down our efforts related to the decarbonisation of our organisation. At the moment our priorities include increasing the share of green energy in our energy mix to reach 20% in 2021 and reducing transport-related emissions – thanks to the new fleet and optimised logistic processes. Apart from major projects we also introduce a series of minor improvements.