The Guardian's 10:10 pledge

How we intend to take the 10:10 challenge and cut our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010

Jo Confino and Claire Buckley
The Guardian, Tuesday 1 September 2009
The Guardian often criticises politicians and business leaders for failing to do enough to combat climate change, but in recent years we have found that reducing our own carbon footprint is no easy task.
While we are justly proud of our new low-carbon offices in King's Cross, London, behind the scenes we remain largely dependent on old-style heavy industry, and do not yet fully understand the impact of our increasing digital presence. We rely on trees being cut down and energy-intensive factories to turn wood pulp into paper. We use large-scale print sites to create our newspapers and magazines, and the road network to distribute our products.
Paper is by far our biggest concern, both in terms of the carbon footprint of its manufacture and ensuring we do not buy from unsustainable sources. In fact, 96% of the paper used in the Guardian and the Observer main sections is recycled, while 82.7% of the virgin fibre used in our magazines is certified as coming from sustainable sources. We also measure the carbon footprint of each of our paper suppliers, and use this to help inform our purchasing decisions.
Measures we are taking in other areas include reducing the amount of plastic in the polywrap used to hold together our multi-sectioned weekend papers (having failed to find a suitable biodegradable alternative), and improving the efficiency of our newspaper distribution network by increasing the number of shared routes with competitor titles.
Given that we have already taken steps to reduce our carbon emissions, reducing them by another 10% next year is going to be challenging. Our main concentration will be on our two newspaper print sites in Manchester and London, given that they accounted for nearly 60% of the 14,567 tonnes of CO2 we generated last year through energy use and travel. Next on our list is our head office, which accounts for the second largest slice of last year's carbon emissions. Given that our new building has been awarded a B-rated energy performance certificate, further improvements are going to be tough. Another difficulty is that the building is multi-tenanted, so we will have to put our heads together with the building management and other tenants to see what more can be done.
In our own part of the building, we are reviewing the lighting systems and encouraging staff to be more conscious of the impact of their behaviour – although there are limits here too, as lighting and temperatures are all centrally controlled. In addition, given that we are increasingly a digitally based business, we are now looking to measure the footprint of our ICT infrastructure, including computers, servers and printers. We have also put in place a system for measuring our UK and overseas travel, and have greatly improved video- and audio-conferencing facilities over the last year, with plans to develop and promote use of these facilities.
It's also worth making the point that while there will always be a cost to the planet of producing newspapers and websites, we can and do make a significant difference by informing and influencing our millions of readers, with this special issue of G2 just one example. Key to our editorial ambitions is the aim of creating the world's leading environmental website, supported by what we believe is already the strongest specialist team of environmentally focused writers in any English-language media organisation.
As the Guardian's editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger says: "The role of government is infinitely harder in this area unless you have an informed citizenry, because politicians are not prepared to risk giving us unpopular and uncomfortable messages. At the same time, there is a role for individuals to put pressure on governments because they sometimes find it more comfortable not to act decisively. One of the roles of the media is to boil down intensely complex subjects and make them comprehensible. If these issues are not aired and placed on the public agenda and debated with facts that are reliable, then it lets everyone off the hook."
For more details, go to our independently audited website guardian.co.uk/sustainability. For a free copy of the 2009 Living Our Values sustainability report, please email sustainability@guardian.co.uk with your name and postal address