Environment

Santander's day-to-day business has a direct impact on the environment, primarily through maintaining our branch and head office property portfolio. The largest areas of impact are in our use of electricity and gas for heating/cooling and lighting, generation of waste and our use of resources such as paper.

Click here to download the Environment Policy 2010

Environmental Management

The Santander Environmental Management System (EMS) provides a framework for defining responsibilities and processes.  The Environment Policy states that Santander is committed to complying with all relevant environmental regulations, laws and codes of practice, and to continuous improvement in environmental matters.

Waste

Santander has a recycling rate of 70% of the measured waste we produced. A structured recycling policy is in place across our Head Office buildings. This includes the removal of individual desk bins and collection of different waste types at central points within each building.

Energy

Branch energy management

The Retail Energy Team drive forward energy reduction initiatives throughout the branch network, including:

  • 'Switch it Off' Campaign with messages delivered by facilities manager branch visits, Intranet and email communications.
  • Encouragement of Branch Energy Champions using energy saving checklists.
  • Branches fitted with new heating/cooling systems with energy efficient controls
  • New energy efficient lighting schemes and controls.
  • Energy surveys carried out regularly to identify and prioritise where measures are most required.
Main offices energy management

Initiatives in our major office locations around the UK include:

  • Installation of high efficiency boilers, one of which is supplemented by the installation of solar panels supporting the heating of water.
  • Chillers replaced at six main office locations. Their installation not only replaced the units using R22 refrigerants but also allow Santander to benefit from modern energy efficient technology.

Emissions

In 2011 we moved to a biomass energy supply from Haven for our head office estate which means 60% of our energy will be supplied from this source. Biomass is fuel or energy derived from plant material, vegetation, or agricultural waste. We were awarded the Carbon Trust Standard in 2010 in recognition of our reduction in carbon emissions over the last three years as well as our commitment to reduce emissions in the future.

Following on from our positive achievements in reducing our carbon emissions, we worked with The CarbonNeutral Company in 2010, the leading provider of carbon reduction solutions, to assess and offset the carbon emissions for our head office building in London, Triton Square for the three year period 2010-12.

Travel

Our employees need to travel in the course of carrying out their duties and we have significant rail, car and flight journeys taken in the course of a year. 31% of all travel in 2010 was by rail compared to 22% in the previous year. Use of Telepresence and Videoconferencing is encouraged to minimise business travel and in 2010 over 1,850 meetings totalling 2,600 hours, were held using video conferencing facilities.