The Group acknowledges that the urgency and importance of the climate crisis requires everyone to play their part.
We are committed to a future in which customers can continue to enjoy our products without harming the environment. This pillar of the Group’s ESG framework focuses on our role in protecting the environment, including achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2035.
4 priority initiatives to net zero
Action over direct emissions
- Urgently cut direct emissions by 80% by 2030.
- Principally actioned through increasinguse of renewable electricity.
Partner responsibility
- By 2025 vendors representing 60% of our third party supplier spend should have carbon reduction plans in place and these plans will be targeting an 80% reduction in their emissions by 2035.
Include our employees
- Encourage greener transport for employees on business and commuting - targeting a reduction of 80% in emissions from these categories by 2035.
Carbon removal offsets
- Invest in high quality carbon removals for the remaining 20% of our direct emissions by 2030 and invest in high quality carbon removals for the remaining indirect emissions by 2035.
Key achievements in 2023:
We continue to make progress but we recognise there is more work to do to reduce our impact on the environment.
In 2023, we undertook a significant re-baselining exercise, working to consolidate our data from our legacy 888 and William Hill locations and suppliers. We onboarded a new carbon accounting platform, to enable us to get a clear and consolidated view of our emissions.
Net zero by 2030: Achieved an 6% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 (market-based) emissions from the new 2022 re-baselined data.
Net zero across value chain by 2035: Scope 3 emissions increased 33% YOY following methodological changes to our reporting methods.
In 2023 we partnered with Optimal Monitoring to implement their EMMA AI energy consumption management solution smart meters in our Retail Licenced Betting Office (LBO) Estate. EMMA AI is an “always on”, machine learning energy consumption management tool.
Following a successful trial over 100 sites in Q1 2023, EMMA was deployed across all eligible Retail LBOs in April.
EMMA constantly monitors consumption inside each LBO and immediately sends out an email alert to the LBO in the case of any consumption issues. By instantly and automatically alerting the LBO, our site managers are then able to immediately correct the cause of any consumption issues. EMMA then receives information back from the LBO about the issue and applies its machine learning capability to increase effectiveness across the entire Estate.
In 2023, our energy consumption further reduced through our use of EMMA AI, by 2,595,852 kWh – a reduction of 5.1% vs our original consumption forecast for the Estate.
Next steps in 2024:
We have made significant progress in recent years to change and improve our business in response to the climate crisis. We will continue to examine our investments, upgrades and process changes that will reduce our emissions and help us to hit our targets. We have completed a detailed re-baselining exercise that gives us a strong platform to better understand and manage our emissions moving forwards, ensuring we hit our ambitious climate targets.
We will also continue to strive to improve our scores with external ratings agencies, to check our progress across both industry peers and other comparable businesses, as we work towards reducing our environmental impact.
