Managing our impact on the environment
Our business, especially our generation business, has an impact on the environment. So managing our emissions, water use and by-products and protecting the areas around our sites are important and challenging areas for us.
The environmental impacts of our operations are carefully controlled by strict regulations and our own rigorous environmental management systems (EMS).
Reviewing and refining our environmental management is an ongoing process and we’re committed to continuous improvement, which means:
- maintaining a high level of environmental management that goes beyond compliance
- ensuring the efficient use of all our resources
- reducing and recycling as much of our by-products as possible.
2008 highlights
Over the last year, we’ve:
- finished building and commissioning the Flue Gas Desulphurisation (FGD) plant at Aberthaw to reduce SO2 emissions by up to 95%
- monitored and managed our emissions to land, air and water at all our power stations and reported no major incidents
- reduced levels of NOx through technical engineering solutions at our older coal plants
- reduced, reused and recycled as many by-products as possible, especially ash produced from our coal-fired power stations at Didcot, Aberthaw and Tilbury
- maintained strict compliance with all new UK legislation
- promoted biodiversity through a series of action plans and local community projects
- continued to construct a highly efficient gas-fired power station at Staythorpe and worked towards Section 36 consent for a 2000MW gas-fired power station at Pembroke in 2008.
It's all part of our commitment to go beyond our legal obligations in relation to environmental management and to encourage all our employees to behave responsibly towards the environment.
