Encouraging our suppliers to join us on the road to net zero

This week I was delighted to be helping to host an event in our Reading office to excite our supply chain partners on the opportunities that lie ahead for DE as we build for net zero.

I joined this company over 30 years ago as an electrical apprentice; and in all that time I’ve never been so excited by the opportunities that lie ahead for us and for those we work with.

The SSE Group is currently investing no less than £7m a day to deliver the low-carbon energy infrastructure required for net zero in the UK, Ireland and beyond.

We call it our Net Zero Acceleration Plan, and it’s that investment – worth £12.5bn over a five-year period, that is very exciting for our supply chain partners too.

In plain English we told them we want to build lots of stuff in our part of the business – whether that’s a network of EV rapid charging hubs, or our multi-GW pipeline in solar and battery storage.

The event was an open invitation for suppliers to jump on board with us to deliver the infrastructure we will build as the distributed energy arm of SSE. It’s the ultimate win-win: good business for suppliers and more net zero infrastructure for the UK.

We also spoke about what sort of a company we are at SSE and what sort of partners we want to work with. We’re a company that tries to do things in a sustainable and ethical way which as a message seemed to land well, I’m pleased to say!

We also spoke about the role for suppliers. Some of our own sustainability targets in distributed energy are ones they can help us directly with; these include:

• By 2024 ensure that we are working with our top 50% of suppliers, by spend, to help them set their own net zero plans
• By 2030, ensure we have built 2GW of battery storage and solar generation capacity, ensuring the grid and customers have greater access to renewables technology.
• By 2030 we are committed to powering over 1.5 million miles per day of zero emission transport through our investment in over 5,000 charging points, powered by renewable energy across the UK.
• By 2023 improve scope 3 absolute carbon emissions data collection processes.
• From 2025 achieve 10% biodiversity net gain on new infrastructure projects.

I’m very enthused by the responsibility we have, and the role Distributed Energy can play in powering change.

If you are interested in being a supplier, or how work with decarbonising our supply chain, you can visit our supplier page for more information: https://www.sseenergysolutions.co.uk/our-suppliers