Environment

Our policy

Environmental concerns are right at the top of our agenda. We believe that we have an absolute duty to ensure that Kingsdown is an environmentally responsible product and with this in mind we have undertaken a root and branch review of our business in order to achieve carbon neutral status and establish Kingsdown as the environmental market leader.

Our source is situated on the North Downs in Kent some 60 miles from London and as such we have the smallest carbon footprint of any British water delivered to London and the south east. This gives us a tremendous head start in the process of achieving carbon neutral status. To build on this we recently commissioned an independent carbon audit from Carbon Managers, www.carbonmanagers.com, to provide us with an accurate measure of exactly what carbon emissions the business produces. Armed with this information we have been able to reduce carbon emissions in a number of key areas of our production and distribution processes. We have then taken various measures to offset our remaining carbon emissions to achieve carbon neutral status.

Reducing Carbon Emissions

  1. We recently added two 7.5t trucks to our delivery fleet both of which contain the latest low emission Euro 4 engines. These engines are dramatically ‘cleaner’ than traditional diesel engines. Over the next 12-18 months we aim to replace all our 3.5t diesel vans with battery driven vans which produce zero emissions.
  2. We deliver directly from our own distribution warehouse in south east London rather than going through distributors. This allows us to control our delivery emissions by ensuring that delivery routes are efficiently planned and that all our delivery vehicles are properly maintained which in turn reduces emissions (for example, all tyre pressures are checked daily to ensure vehicles run as efficiently as possible).
  3. We recycle all production waste from our bottling plant and all our empty pallets are collected and re-used by a pallet recycling company.
  4. We only use recyclable glass bottles that are manufactured from at least 30% recycled glass and we actively promote recycling of glass and encourage our customers to recycle our bottles as much as possible.
  5. All electricity for our bottling plant and offices is supplied by energy providers who generate power from renewable sources.

Offsetting Carbon Emissions

With the help of Carbon Managers we purchase a range of carbon credits to offset our remaining carbon emissions and achieve carbon neutral status for Kingsdown. Offsetting is the process of investing in projects and technologies which actively help to reduce global CO2 levels.

We are proud to have invested in projects ranging from financing LPG stoves and gas canisters for villages in Darfur to hydroelectric projects in Honduras. LPG stoves in Darfur in place of solid fuel stoves improve air quality in villagers’ homes thus reducing breathing related illnesses as well as dramatically reducing carbon emissions, while hydroelectric projects in Honduras are helping to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.