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Beyond net zero: Eden's journey

We’re ‘walking the talk’, transforming our operating systems to eradicate emissions from energy and transport and designing our future Eden Projects to be working exemplars of regenerative transformation.

Eden's climate positive strategy

We’ve joined the Race to Zero, through our partners Planet Mark, pledging to become a climate positive organisation by 2030.

Links

Coal

Carbon is not a bad thing

Carbon is an essential resource and one of the major building blocks for life. The climate problem arises when there is too much ‒ as a gas ‒ in the atmosphere.
Discover carbon's back story
Snow

The climate lexicon – unpicking the language

Talking about carbon and the climate is a whole new language – here’s some of the words unscrambled to help you on the journey.
Understand the jargon

The journey to net zero and beyond

Globally we need to get emissions from 51 billion tonnes (of CO2 equivalents) a year to ZERO.

Eden aims to go from 9,671 tonnes of CO2 equivalents emissions (2019/20) to beyond zero by 2030.

Graphic

Scales showing Eden's progress in reaching carbon positive

Today

Solar panels on the roof of the Core building with an overlaid tick

100% of our electricity is generated via off-site renewables which helps to drive grid decarbonisation and the transition to clean energy sources.

Electric vehicle in front of the Eden Biomes overlaid with a tick

The majority of our Eden fleet vehicles run on renewable electricity.

Rainforest Biome with overlaid tick

Around 10,000 tonnes of carbon are locked up in the soil we made to grow our plants.

Eden Project jute bag with an overlaid tick

85% of our catering supplies are sourced locally. Items in our shops are locally made, made from recycled materials, or recyclable.

Today

The things we need to work on:

  • Fuels: We heat our Biomes (and cook our food) using fossil fuels. By 2022/23 we will heat our Biomes using sustainable geothermal heat produced onsite.
  • Goods and services: Incoming goods and services account for a major share of our emissions as do staff commutes and business travel.
  • Visitor travel: Most visitors currently come in combustion engine cars. We’re working to provide green travel solutions and expand our electric vehicle charging service.
  • Other: 70% of our waste is recycled. Over two thirds of our irrigation and loo flushing water is recycled rainwater. However, processing waste and water still currently contributes to our emissions.

2030

Geothermal drill at Eden with tick icon overlaid
Geothermal energy

By 2022/23 our Biomes will be heated by sustainable geothermal energy produced onsite. Our electricity will be produced by onsite geothermal energy by 2024. It will power our (and your) electric vehicles along with all our on site electrics.

Bee in wildflower meadow with tick overlaid
Nature-based solutions

We will continue to make soil, grow plants, regenerate landscapes, make and use biochar, work on national and international regenerative projects and run education programmes – all of which increase biodiversity and fight climate change.

Render of Eden Project North with overlaid tick
Green infrastructure

By 2030 we'll have retrofitted site systems at Eden Cornwall to decarbonise our operations; installing clean technologies and circular systems and will also have reduced our energy use. All new Edens will be designed, built, and run in a sustainable way.

Eden Project shop with overlaid green tick
Supply chain

We continue to develop responsible supply chains in order to reach carbon zero together. We 2030 we aim to reduce these emissions by 55%.

Today

2030 and beyond

By 2030 we aim to have cut visitor travel emissions by 55% (with green travel options and electric vehicle charging). We will continue to reduce emissions from external goods and service and travel. 

Unavoidable emissions will be ‘inset’ through our own verified carbon removals; nature-based solutions that absorb CO2 and lock it away – e.g. creating woodlands, meadows and wetlands.

Eden's carbon footprint today

Eden's carbon footprint today

To help us understand and tackle our carbon emissions, we've divided them into three areas:

Pie chart showing Eden's carbon emissions
  1. Direct (accounts for 14% of our carbon emissions): Heating, cooling, moving around
  2. Indirect (11%): Bought electricity
  3. External (75%): Buying in food, goods, materials (includes the CO2 produced in making and transporting things), travel (staff, visitors, suppliers) and building things

Eden’s decarbonisation pathway

We’re going climate positive by 2030, aiming to reduce operational emissions by 10% a year: drawing down CO2 using nature-based solutions, monitoring and reducing site emissions and tackling the ‘biggie’: the external emissions.

How?

We’re moving towards a low carbon, circular model using:

How

CO₂ levels today

The global level of carbon dioxide and its rate of increase are two of the most important factors in deciding the future of our civilisation and life on Earth. The widget below exists to make these two ideas readily available to anyone in the world, be they a farmer, a lawyer, a child or a retiree.

Widget credits

Widget credits

This project is led by Matthew Shribman with the support of Cambridge Zero / University of Cambridge.

Developers: Chris Butterworth, Richard Coates, Rowland Williams, Keith Alexander, Erika Antiche Garzón, Max Palmer

Designers: Bella Soares, Chris Butterworth

Special thanks: Gary Fearnall

The widget is endorsed by the Grantham Institute, the 2 Degrees Institute, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and Reading University’s Department of Meteorology.

The original report, with more details about the widget, its ideation, and suggestions for further communication, is available here.

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