EcoReal – We increase our carbon handprint by reducing our customers’ carbon footprints
Our core goal is to reduce climate emissions and ensure healthy and safe conditions for people. Our operations are based on our values: responsibility, reliability and efficiency.
In 2020, our carbon handprint was over 41,000tCO2. The life cycle carbon footprint of our customers’ properties decreased in the same relation. Our own operations are completely carbon neutral.
Purpose
Our goal is to be the most responsible actor in the industry. The real estate sector plays a significant role in achieving Finland’s climate goals, as the built environment consumes about 40% of Finland’s final energy consumption and produces about 30% of Finland’s greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of our work is to help our customers reduce their climate emissions. Improving energy efficiency and increasing local renewable energy production will lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from properties, but also to money saved.
Results
EcoReal’s carbon handprint is created by enhancing the operations of customer-owned properties, which reduces customers’ energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The energy consumption of the construction or manufacturing phase or recycling have not been taken into account in the calculation of the handprint.
In 2020, we enabled our customers to reduce emissions by up to 41,000 tCO2. Our carbon handprint increased by 46% compared to the previous year. The handprint corresponds to about 4,100 Finns’ carbon footprint per year, since according to Sitra, the Finns’ annual greenhouse gas emissions are 10 tCO2. Compared to our carbon footprint, our handprint is more than 1,400 times larger.
Implementation
In 2020, we made investments in our customers’ properties for a total of approximately EUR 6.6 million. With these investments, our customers achieved approximately 41,250 tCO2 emission reductions and life-cycle savings of EUR 25.8 million. This corresponds to the amount of carbon dioxide sequestered by a Finnish forest of about 100 square kilometers per year. Life cycle savings increased by about 70% and emission reductions by 46%. The number of energy repairs carried out during the year was slightly lower than in the previous year, but they were higher than before. In addition, emission reductions are reduced by the fact that the emission factors used decrease every year as energy production becomes cleaner. Concrete measures to achieve savings included: geoenergy projects, renovations and modernizations of house engineering systems. New, properly functioning systems also achieve healthy and safe working conditions for people.
Offering expert services that optimize environment, health and safety of the real estate and facility sector and scale these solutions offers a wide area for development and has the potential for large scale impact. This Planet act is partially scalable as it requires deep expertise and competences in energy, health and safety.
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