Our initiatives

We think about our environmental impact as an integral part of how we do business. Our environmental commitments help shape our thinking about what we publish, how we manage the buildings we occupy and how we develop relationships with suppliers and business partners. In this section, we focus on the practical initiatives which help us meet our climate neutral target. Our primary efforts are focused on

• Reducing the energy we use and the distance we travel on business,
• Purchasing green electricity in certain markets

We describe how we use our offset partnerships to raise awareness of climate issues in our 'engaging others' section.

Reducing the energy we use and the distance we travel

Our climate neutral commitment helped us to achieve a 12% absolute global reduction in our climate footprint over the last two years. This is three-times the level of reduction we were achieving before introducing the commitment.

Our buildings

Our businesses in the UK, the US, South Africa, Canada and India have all commissioned comprehensive environmental reviews to help identify opportunities for energy savings. In the UK, we have introduced a building specific programme of reduction targets and action programmes. As a result of these reviews, we continue with our programme of introducing energy efficient features in many of our existing buildings:

• Electricity use at our distribution centre in the UK is down by 11% following a review of energy saving opportunities.
• Our San Antonio Distribution Centre reported electricity consumption down year-on-year by 22% through investment in lighting and building energy management together with an extensive awareness programme to involve employees. The facilities reduced its energy use by 1 million.

Information technology

We use technology extensively. Our portfolio of digital products continues to grow and we run data centres. Improving the way we use technology can help to improve efficiency and save cost, as well as reducing our climate footprint:

• Our flagship initiative continues to be server virtualisation which reduces power use by shrinking our IT hardware footprint and associated cooling requirements. As at the end of 2010, the server virtualization initiative has helped us reduce electricity use by 25m kWh saving US$2.5m in energy costs. Overall, server virtualisation has saved Pearson over $37m in hardware, software, labour and electricity.
• Working through our local green team network, we have run switch-off campaigns and in the UK and the US introduced automatic switch-off capability where possible.

Travelling on business

For essential travel, we've been encouraging our people to avoid flights wherever possible and we continue to lower the emissions relating to our car fleet.

• We have invested in upgraded video conferencing facilities in key buildings. High-definition systems are actively being used in Pearson offices. 2011 saw a significant expansion of video-conferencing capacity with new systems introduced at our US offices in Rancho Cardova, California, Denver, Colorado and White Plains, New York as well as in Spain and the UK.
• In the US, Germany and Australia, we have both reduced the number of cars in our fleet, aiming to replace others with hybrid and lower emission vehicles where possible. The number of hybrids in the US fleet increased from 33 in 2009 to 250 in 2011 and our aim continues to be for the majority of the fleet to be hybrids.

Renewable energy

We are committed to using renewable electricity across our operations where it is economically viable to do so.

• We first secured a supply of green electricity for all our main buildings in the UK in 2009. This was continued for all of 2011.
• For 2010, we again purchased renewable electricity credits to cover our electricity use in the US, Canada and Mexico and extended the programme to cover Latin America and India. Pearson is one of the top 50 purchasers of renewable energy credits in the United States and was named as a 2010 Green Power Leadership Award winner by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Our aim for 2012 is that 100% of our electricity supply be sourced from utilities or through the purchase of renewable electricity credits.

Our first renewable electricity project went live in December 2009. Over its lifetime the new solar panels on our Old Tappan Demand Print Center in New Jersey is expected to produce electricity equivalent to 4,325 metric tonnes of C02e. To date, the Old Tappan solar panel project is generating 9% more than projected.

During 2011 we installed our first wind turbine project in Owatonna, Minnesota and completed a second solar panel installation project at our Cranbury Distribution Center in New Jersey. The Cranbury project is among the largest company owned single roof installation projects in the world. We have invested in excess of $10 million in renewable energy generation with a capacity as follows:

During 2011, a second wind turbine project and completed a third solar panel installation were approved.

The renewable energy credits relating to our own generation are being sold and the proceeds reinvested in our green fund.