Supporting Scotland’s Climate Week

This week marks Scotland's Climate Week, an annual event that encourages individuals, communities and businesses to come together to show support for tackling the climate emergency.

In our most recent Business Plan, we committed to making a contribution towards the Scottish Government’s target of Scotland becoming a net zero country by 2045.

To support this, the development of our first Net Zero Strategy is in its initial stages.

We have a duty as a public body in Scotland to report our annual carbon emissions and what further steps we are doing to reduce them.

Social Security Scotland staff will be taking part in several events this week, including a session on Saving Energy at Home, run by Home Energy Scotland, and a workshop on reducing our carbon footprint whilst at work. There is also an opportunity for colleagues to sign-up to join our relaunched Sustainability Network. These events will act as a launch of a series of Net Zero events that will take place for our staff over the next year.

As an organisation, we have been mindful of making sustainable decisions throughout our first five years. We have made the choice to locate our central buildings in urban centres that have excellent public transport links and we seek to use renewable energy wherever possible. We also participate in the Cycle to Work scheme, where colleagues can get discounts on bikes and other cycling equipment, to encourage them to cycle to work.

While we have made significant progress on our environmental performance, we recognised that we needed to do more.

To take steps towards reducing our carbon footprint, we have now changed to a fully electric pool car fleet, removed the gas-fired central heating system at our Dundee office and upgraded to LED lighting in our Glasgow office. We are continuing to use Sustainable Procurement Tools and have used recycled oceanic plastic waste to make some of the upholstery on our furniture.

We will also shortly be reintroducing separate waste collection at our office in Glasgow, as we already have in our Dundee headquarters. This will make it much easier for our recycling waste to go to the Glasgow Recycling and Renewable Energy Centre.