Water, waste and biodiversity

We are committed to improving our environmental footprint. We monitor and manage our water usage, waste production and ecological impact, seeking to reduce our impacts where possible.

Managing these aspects of our business is critical to upholding our legal obligations, protecting our reputation and retaining our licence to operate. We complete environmental impact assessments as part of all power station planning or licence applications. Many of these environmental impact assessments are available online.

Water

We recognise that water availability is becoming increasingly significant to our global stakeholders. To improve the visibility of our water footprint, we participate in the Carbon Disclosure Project's Water Disclosure Project PDF (0.08Mb). However, as we do not operate water-intensive activities in water-stressed areas, we do not consider water to be a major issue for Centrica.

For a company of our size, we consume a relatively small amount of water, although our use - especially for cooling - is significantly greater.

Our water use falls into three main categories:

• Cooling water that we redirect through pipes to cool our power generation or gas processing facilities. We use rather than consume this water: it is returned to its source over a short time period. We take our cooling water from seas, rivers and estuaries (more than 99% is saline)
• Process water that we use and which is then subject to treatment before being used again or returned to a water source
• Drinking water consumed in our buildings and offices.

The vast majority of our water use (over 95%) is related to cooling and process water used in our energy sourcing and generation operations. We use rather than consume this water, as it is returned to the same water catchment area within a short time frame.

Our environmental impact assessments of power station and gas assets include water management plans for limiting the volume and rate of water withdrawal and discharge according to local ecological and environmental conditions.

For data on water use, see our data centre.

Waste

We aim to reduce the amount of waste we produce in all our operations. Where we cannot eliminate waste, we work to recycle or recover as much as possible to minimise the amount we send to landfill. Our reduction targets focus mainly on our customer-facing businesses as the amount and type of waste varies significantly in our upstream operations (such as gas production and energy generation) depending on the stage of the operation.

Our online 'Dangerous goods management system' sets out guidelines to ensure hazardous materials and waste are managed responsibly to minimise risks for employees and the environment.

To see our waste data, visit our data centre.

Nuclear waste

We have a 20% stake in the nuclear power generator EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Group Limited. While we do not operate the facilities, we have chosen to report data on nuclear waste relating to our stake. For more detailed information, visit EDF Energy's website.

All of EDF's power stations are granted authorisations to dispose of radioactive waste by either the Environment Agency or the Scottish Environment Protection Agency. These authorisations require the recording of amounts of waste sent off-site each year.

Nuclear waste is treated in a number of ways to reduce volumes before being disposed of at a facility near Drigg in Cumbria, incinerated at Hythe, or in the case of some metals, sent for recycling at Lillyhall in Cumbria.

For more information on our nuclear waste and spent fuel, please visit our data centre.

For more information on the waste produced by EDF Energy Nuclear Generation's nuclear power stations, please see www.edfenergy.com/sustainability.

Biodiversity

We believe it is important to manage our impact on ecosystems. We focus our activities at a local level and at facilities that have the greatest potential impact on biodiversity. We engage actively with stakeholders to ensure we address their concerns. For more information on our stakeholder engagement activities, please see our stakeholder engagement summary PDF (0.60Mb).

It is essential that we manage the impacts of our operations, particularly in our energy sourcing and generating activities, where the potential effect is greatest. We are committed to conducting environmental impact assessments and developing action plans that involve our employees and local communities, where possible, to manage these impacts in line with our Group Environment Policy. Assessments have been conducted at all energy exploration and production sites, and biodiversity action plans are already in place at some of our power stations.