Celebrating our Sustainable Progress
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Published 22 Apr 2025 in Raising Awareness
This Earth Day, we’re celebrating the progress we’ve made – and the power we all have to drive change. The theme Our Power, Our Planet invites everyone around the globe to unite behind renewable energy, and we’re proud to say that’s exactly what we’ve been doing across our Society in offering fairer access to green energy within our communities.
Last year, we launched our partnership with the Big Solar Co-op, a fellow co-operative focused on installing solar panels across UK buildings. Through this collaboration, we’ve installed over 300 solar panels across two of our sites: 141 panels at our Warwick Head Office and 162 panels at our Your Co-op Food store in Copthorne, Shropshire.
Together, these systems generate more than 100,000 kWh of renewable electricity each year, reducing our carbon emissions by more than 20 tonnes annually. It’s a significant step in our wider sustainability strategy, which aims to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2027.
Through Younity, our joint venture with Octopus Energy, we are now supporting over 360 community energy projects, equivalent to over a third of the community energy sector, generating enough green electricity to power over 65,000 homes.
It also launched the Community Energy Connect platform, matching volunteers to community energy groups with more than 250 registrations, won the Sector Support Award at the Community Energy England Awards, and presented its work at the Labour Party Conference. We’re looking forward to seeing what’s in store for the next five years!
We’re also proud to say that our efforts in greening the grid with partners including the Big Solar Co-op and Younity has seen us nominated for the UK Green Business Awards in the ‘Retailer of the Year’ category.
If you wish to learn more and can volunteer your time and skills with local community energy groups, please visit Younity’s Community Energy Connect website here.