KCOM are a hull-based full fibre provider serving 170,000 customers across East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire. Their ambitious plans are a full ten years ahead of the UK Government target, prompting praise from Minister for Energy Security and Net Zero Graham Stuart, MP.
The provider has a raft of green initiatives which will help them reduce their carbon footprint including the introduction of electric vehicles, using solar panels for their offices and joining a carbon offset scheme planting woodland in Yorkshire.
Climate change is the biggest challenge facing the planet today and now is the time to act. As a major employer in our region, it’s important that we take a lead and do what we can to show we’re serious about reaching Net Zero and combatting global warming. We no longer have the option of standing by and hoping for someone else to come up with a solution.
We already work with great local initiatives such as the Oh Yes! Net Zero campaign and The Waterline Summit, but today we are putting our money where our mouth is and making our pledges to reach Net Zero by 2040, which is ten years ahead of the Government’s national targets. It will be challenging but we believe it the right thing to do for our business, our customers, our region and our planet.
One of the major initiatives impacting on KCOM’s march toward Net Zero is its £17m programme to replace its legacy copper landline network with a full fibre one. The environmental impact of the network upgrade is huge, reducing KCOM’s electricity usage by 35% while also reducing its carbon emissions by a quarter. The project, which is expected to take two years to complete, is one of the biggest infrastructure schemes in the company’s history and will start transferring homes and businesses from copper to fibre in Beverley in April. It will then move on to other areas of Hull and East Yorkshire in the KCOM network.
KCOM also today announced it’s partnership with Yorkshire-based family business Make It Wild, which will offset 1,500 Tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gases by planting trees in Make it Wild’s Yorkshire nature reserves.
Other initiatives include working with ground-breaking ‘urban mining’ company N2S to reclaim precious rare earth metals such as copper, platinum and gold from KCOM’s old IT and exchange equipment. The metals will then be reused to make new equipment as part of a sustainable circular economy.