Carbon Footprint
Climate change is a real and serious threat to society, caused primarily by the burning of fossil fuels. At Robert Horne, we recognise this and have started the process of managing direct and indirect emissions of greenhouse gases, in order to minimise the contribution to climate change of our products and services.
Robert Horne has worked to establish its own operational carbon footprint (those emissions related to its day to day operations). This includes energy consumption of warehouses and offices, business travel, logistics and employee commuting. An ambitious commitment has been made to achieve a 20% reduction in the ‘carbon footprint’ of Robert Horne’s business activities by 2010. Further information is available on request.
The carbon footprint of a product will typically include the carbon emissions related to raw materials, energy use, direct manufacturing emissions and transportation.
A product carbon footprint will have a given scope or boundary to the assessment, for example from raw materials through to delivery to the merchant (‘cradle to gate’). However, sometimes this will also form part of a broader Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which includes further transportation, product use and disposal (‘cradle to grave’).
Establishing accurate and reliable product carbon footprints is a challenge but Robert Horne continues to engage with suppliers to identify and limit emissions attributable to products and to develop low carbon product options.