Decarbonising our business

We are minimising our environmental impact by reducing our energy consumption and improving the efficiency of our real estate and wider operations.

As one of the UK’s largest landowners, we have a responsibility to decarbonise the assets we hold. We’re taking steps to do this across our entire portfolio, which includes historic buildings, tenanted farms and the seabed.

Improving data and processes is critical to achieving this. We’re working with managing agents, data scientists, expert advisers, our supply chain and a team of best-in-class engineers to look in detail at how we collect energy performance data and how energy is managed at a granular level, building by building. We’ve also installed solar panels, wind turbines and biomass generators at our sites which contribute increasingly to our renewable energy mix. Where we refurbish existing properties – many of which are classed as historical - we are making significant investments to take a low-carbon, sustainable approach.

Together, this activity led to a 15% reduction in our energy consumption in 2023/24.

Looking ahead, expanding our existing data sets will allow us to build a complete, enterprise-wide view of our carbon footprint across our entire operations and activities, which will help us focus attention where we can have the most impact, and develop net zero targets in line with science and the latest industry best practice.

In April 2024 we published a net zero update with more detail on our emissions reduction targets as well as progress since our 2023 update. This includes information about our full baseline. We will be publishing new updates in line with our Annual Reporting cycle.