Sky: the story of how a TV channel went green
Last year, we reported that broadcaster Sky had gone carbon neutral. Since then, they have sponsored Lights Out London, introduced a 'recycle your set-top box' scheme, brought out a new green-minded cartoon character to appear on our screens shortly, and continue to get involved with loads of green initiatives.
Many companies are making similar claims about carbon neutrality, so we decided to look behind the hype and find out exactly what Sky have done to minimise emissions and encourage greenness in its customers and employees. I put some questions to them to find out...
Hippyshopper: Where does Sky get its green energy from? Do you use an eco-friendly electricity supplier?
Sky: We buy our electricity from Scottish and Southern electricity, which is from 100% renewable sources.
Hippyshopper: For a company as big as Sky, what did going carbon neutral entail?
Sky: For Sky this was a three step process. Firstly we measured the company’s carbon footprint, which we have been actively doing for the past four years. Then we reduced our carbon emissions through energy efficient measures, including the purchase of renewable energy. Finally we offset unavoidable emissions through investing in renewable energy projects.
Hippyshopper: You have significantly reduced the energy consumption of your set top boxes, but do you encourage your viewers to take a responsible attitude to TV viewing, e.g. by not leaving their sets on standby?
Sky: We encourage our customers to switch their boxes onto standby when not in use. To help with this we have introduced onscreen messaging to remind people e.g the green chameleon. We have also introduced autostandby to our Sky+ and Sky HD customers, which automatically switches inactive boxes onto standby mode at night.
Hippyshopper: You recently sponsored ‘lights out London’; do you know how many people took part and what the overall impact was in terms of energy saved?
Sky: The campaign reached 2 million adults across a period of 2 weeks, saving the equivalent energy of 1 million light bulbs.
Hippyshopper: How popular has your ‘recycle you Sky products’ scheme been so far?
Sky: In the past year we have taken back 838,130 set top boxes which is equivalent to 1840 tonnes of recycling
Hippyshopper: Do you have any other upcoming environmental events you’d like to tell us about?
Sky: We have recently launched an online competition with Sky Cast called Green Shoots where customers can upload short clips of actions they have taken to reduce their impact on climate change. For more information please visit the Green Shoots microsite
