Fiona Ball: Three years on from our net zero pledge

Three years into our Sky Zero journey, it’s important to take stock of progress we are making in our journey to become net zero carbon by 2030.  

From being the first media company to go carbon neutral, to launching the world’s first auto standby set top box - we've been committed to reducing our environmental impact for more than 15 years. Sky's pledge to go net zero carbon by 2030 demonstrates our commitment to keep rises in global temperature below 1.5 degrees.  While society is making encouraging progress on carbon reduction, we can never be complacent or lose focus.  

In 2022, we saw several devastating extreme weather events, from monsoon flooding in Pakistan to wildfires in Spain and Portugal.  It’s clear that climate change only makes these naturally occurring events more frequent and severe. The devastating natural disasters only serve to strengthen our resolve to take further action.  

Sky has been incredibly proactive over the last twelve months. As part of our net zero pledge, we committed to reducing direct emissions created from our employees and their daily activities. That’s why in January of this year, we launched food emissions labelling information in all 29 restaurants of our 15 UK and Republic of Ireland sites, helping our employees reduce their emissions. To further support our employees in this sense, we operate electric shuttle buses on our sites and have installed electric charging points in our car parks.  

As a media and technology company, we are well placed to use our platforms to engage audiences on climate change and encourage steps to reduce carbon emissions. So, our £2m Sky Zero Footprint Fund returned for its second year. This initiative supports brands to commit to a more sustainable future by amplifying their positive environmental messages through the power of TV and advertising.   

Products  

People may think that Sky’s most material impact is caused by the production of our content that our viewers love. However, our technology and products have a more significant impact and that’s exactly why we launched Sky Glass, the world’s first carbon neutral TV which, this year, will be available for customers in Ireland and Italy. 

And when we are producing content, its environmental impact remains front of mind. This year we’re excited that Sky Studios Elstree, the world’s most sustainable film and TV studio, will be fully operational. 

Sport 

Looking elsewhere across the business, our Sky Zero and Sky Sports Summer of Sport campaign in 2022 showed sports fans the impact of climate change on sport. From flooded pitches and rain delays to athletes experiencing heat-exhaustion, climate change is threatening sport as we know it. We want to help fans look after the sports they love and make sure there is always a place to play.  

Building on momentum created in 2022, Sky Sports recently held The Green Football Weekend, a national campaign that brought together 80 of the UK’s biggest football clubs, charity partners, broadcasters and millions of fans to help tackle climate change by encouraging the changing of daily habits that harm the environment. It was the first of its kind and a fantastic success. 

Investing in nature 

So, we’ve partnered with WWF and the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew to ensure we are investing in nature in the right way, helping biodiversity flourish and absorbing the emissions that businesses can’t currently reduce.  

Further, sustainability is not just the focus on environmental impact but importantly, the social impact of everything we do. Sky has launched a robust training programme for our employees to build human rights policies into every decision made throughout our value chain. 

Achieving a net zero target is the responsibility of everyone within a business and beyond. No business or government can succeed in delivering a low-carbon economy on their own. There’s still a way to go, but we’re confident that by working together we can reach our goals and this time next year we can report further progress on our journey, the planet depends on it.