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Your Co-op provides simple solutions for members and customers to reduce their carbon footprints with climate-positive Broadband, Mobile and Fairphone. Through our partnership with Ecologi, we can reduce your carbon emissions by a combined total of 70kg each month, just by using our ethical broadband and mobile offering.
Every month, we fund carbon offsetting through Ecologi, who then invest that money into projects that remove more greenhouse gasses from the atmosphere than our carbon footprint puts in. This equates to 50kg of carbon for every new user of our climate-positive products. The carbon reduction projects Your Co-op fund, are certified at the very highest level as Gold Standard and equivalent.
To help with long-term carbon capture, we also plant trees on behalf of every new customer in reforestation projects all over the world. The aim is to support biodiversity, prevent ecological collapse and keep global temperatures from rising above 1.5C. This is made possible by your climate-positive broadband and mobile services funding Ecologi's tree-planting partner, Eden Restoration projects. Through this, they plant millions of trees around the world each month.
As a user of Your Co-op Broadband, four factors contribute to an average monthly carbon emission value in kilograms. Your average monthly usage is only one, as the carbon journey combines the demand for internal servers, the router, and engineering resources which are required for all new internet connections. Below is the average kg of Carbon per month.
1. Average kg carbon for internal servers, per month – 0.014 kg
2. Average kg carbon per router, per month – 0.98 kg
3. Average kg carbon for engineer resource, per month – 0.13 kg
4. Average kg carbon per user, per month (@0.0138 per GB) – 1.55 kg
TOTAL CO2e (kg) per service user – 2.674 kg
A typical on-premise or data centre server produces 916 kg CO2e per year. Our current servers annually emit an average of 2,748 kg of CO2e or 229 kg per month. If we then average this across the total base of customers (229 kg/16,496) that results in 0.014 kg per month.
Wi-Fi routers have very low energy consumption, but they are usually left on 24 hours a day to provide uninterrupted internet access. An average wireless UK router uses 6 watts, which means each router would consume 0.14kWh per day or 51.1kWh per year, resulting in 11.753 kg of CO2e per year or 0.98 kg per month.
In 2020, Openreach Engineers travelled over 220 million miles, using more than 37 million litres of fuel - producing over 95,000 tonnes of CO2e. There were 9.9 million engineering visits to customers, which means that 0.432kg per mile was produced by Openreach vans and each visit averaged a 22.22-mile journey, equalling an average of 9.6 kg of CO2e per visit.
The 2623 visits to customers in 2020, results in a total of 25,180.80kg of CO2e - averaged across each of our 16,496 users results in 0.13kg per month per user.
For our 16,496 Broadband customers, the combined internet usage is 22,203,788.27GB, meaning per user the average usage per year is 1,346.01GB. Breaking this down further, the monthly usage is 112.17GB.
An estimated 0.06 kWh is required per GB of data transmitted across the internet. According to the UK Government, the amount of CO2e created per kWh is 0.23 kg. Therefore 0.23 x 0.06 = 0.0138 kg of CO2e for every GB streamed/transmitted.
The total average CO2e emissions per user a month is therefore 2.674kg. However, offsetting 50kg of CO2e each month through our climate partners Ecologi, ensures a genuinely climate-positive Broadband service.
The Fairphone 4 is the world's most sustainable phone, with an emphasis on its social and environmental impact, as well as the longevity of its use. In fact, despite the industry-leading sustainability credentials of Fairphone, its longevity is what saves the most CO2e emissions.
By choosing one of our climate-positive handsets, no matter if it is a Fairphone 4 or another from our mobile range, Ecologi will offset carbon emissions by 25kg every month.
The average CO2e emissions can be broken down for a user of a Your Co-op mobile as follows:
1. The production of a phone = 55kg of CO2e
2. Charging the phone (4 hours per day) = 5.92g of CO2e
3. Making a 1-minute call = 0.1g of CO2e
4. Sending an SMS = 0.014g of CO2e
5. Downloading 1GB of data = 17g of CO2e
Over the course of a two-year contract, our average customer will produce 56.9kg of CO2e, which is 2.37kg CO2e per month. Taking that away from the monthly Ecologi CO2e offset amount of 25kg leaves a climate positive surplus of 22.63kg of CO2e per user a month.
So far, Your Co-op mobile has prevented 371.86 tonnes of CO2e from entering our atmosphere, thanks to climate-positive mobile customers helping to fund Ecologi carbon reduction projects.
The total lifecycle CO2e emissions from a Fairphone 4 is 50kg, with 35kg (75%) emitted during the production period. The unfortunate mobile industry trend is that phones are very quickly replaced and not recycled, at an average of 2.7 years of use for mobile phones. However, data shows Fairphone users are averaging an expected 5.5 years of use, which alone has saved a collective 561 tonnes of CO2e (up to 2021). Individually, this will reduce your phone’s annual carbon footprint by 31% - a great change with a small action.
To further battle the mounting e-waste problem, which in 2021 was an extra 57.4 million tonnes, Fairphone commit to recycling or upcycling as many used phones as they sell, meaning they are 100% electronic e-waste neutral.
The design of the phone itself, is setup so that many of the key components are interchangeable at an affordable rate and can be done by yourself at home. It is therefore no surprise that Fairphone is the industry leader in repairability, with an iFixit score of 10/10, which saves you money, cuts your carbon and prolongs your phone’s life.
This results in the Fairphone being made from 31% fair materials in 2021, despite the supply chain issues of the pandemic. Fairphone have expectations of growing this figure to a minimum of 70% in the near future.
So far 54,887 people have been helped through the fair factories policy which improves living wages, bonuses, representation, workplace health and safety and more. This positive action for their workforce is one of the many aspects Fairphone would like to influence on the wider mobile phone industry.
Fairphone not only cut a mobile user’s carbon footprint but also make a positive impact throughout the whole lifecycle of the phone, from its production, owner’s usage, and recycling and upcycling after many years of carbon cutting use.
To find out more about Fairphone's credentials, please see their impact report 2021.
Taking a train from London to Manchester and back 30 times
Google Maps shows the distance between London and Manchester as around 209 miles, and using the UK Government greenhouse gas conversion figures, the average CO2e footprint of a train traveller is 0.03694 kg per km.
Flying as a passenger on a plane for about 300 miles
Per passenger, per mile - the average CO2e emissions are about 150g.
943 cups of white coffee or tea having boiled just the right amount of water
53g of CO2e is emitted by having a cup of white tea or coffee, boiling only the water you need.
© Your Co-op, part of The Midcounties Co-operative 2023
