With all the election talk about reducing carbon emissions it’s hard to know who to trust.
Devastating heatwaves in Europe and wildfires in the US and Australia, and unprecedented flooding in Britain – action needs to be taken.
But getting big business to take responsibility is hard.
Some, particularly in other parts of the world, are stuck in an industrial rut.
Others – think Tesla, Ikea, Patagonia clothes, even Apple – are starting to be recognised for their efforts.
Even big oil and energy companies are taking note.
Octopus Energy, one of the new disrupters in the sector, is making a virtue of the fact that its electricity is all green, while it offsets some of the carbon from its gas supplies.
It seems to be paying off, backed up by a big emphasis on customer service.
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The business is now one of the biggest suppliers in the 海角视频, and has branched out into new markets such as Australia and Germany.
It was named the best utility brand in Britain in the 2019 Which Awards, and was the only firm to achieve top ratings across all categories in the watchdog’s customer survey of energy providers.
All in all that has helped turnover top £1.4 billion – not bad for a company that came from a standing just start three and a half years ago.
Chief executive and founder Greg Jackson says one of the reasons it has succeeded where so many energy company’s have failed is that emphasis on service rather than simply trying to offer unsustainable deals for customers – then snatching the discounts away once the customer is settled in.
The business chose the Midlands, specifically Leicester, as its base because he felt it “represented the future of Britain”.
Within a year-or-so it had 250,000 households on its books and 1,500 businesses.
In the last 18 months those figures have gone through the roof.
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Speaking in the build-up to this month’s LeicestershireLive Business Executive of the Year Awards, Greg said he had been particularly proud of his company’s role in getting Ofgem to establish an energy price cap to ensure customers on variable rates got a fairer deal.
(He missed out on a LeicestershireLive trophy in the big business category to Deborah Ewan, chief executive of Pukka Pies.)
Greg said he started putting Octopus together in late 2015, and prior to that had jobs writing video games, marketing shampoo for Procter and Gamble and even building the Labour Party’s membership system.
Today, Octopus has operations in not just Leicester, but Warwick, London, Brighton, Munich and Sydney, as a result of buying up competitors and through exponential natural growth.
Overall there are around 500 staff.
Greg said: “Our business is about three-and-a-half years old and we now provide renewable energy to 1.2 million households across the 海角视频, Australia and Germany.
“Our mission is to make the transition to green energy affordable – in fact our job is to make greener energy cheaper than dirty energy and to provide outstanding customer service while we’re doing it.”
He said the past 12 months had seen “incredible” growth for Octopus and – because of, or despite the huge turnover – they would “probably” break even this year.
Accounts filed at Companies House showed an overall loss of around £5.9 million in the year to April, 2018, and a similar figure the previous year.
The same accounts showed Octopus received “substantial funding” last year from Octopus Capital via its immediate parent company Octopus Energy Holding Ltd – which stood at £22.8 million at the time.
He said: “We’ve roughly trebled in size in terms of the number of customers, from less than half a million to 1.2 million today.
“We’ve opened an office in Brighton, we acquired Co-op Energy in Warwick, and have opened offices in Sydney and acquired a company in Germany, so it’s been quite a busy year.
“I think the thing I’m most proud of is the energy price cap.
“When we were less than six months old as a business we did a load of work that helped show how energy companies used very opaque pricing to overcharge, or at least charge very high rates to loyal customers.
“We took that data to journalists and to politicians and we essentially started the campaign for an energy price cap.
“People told us it would never happen.
“They said a Conservative Government would never pass a price cap. They said that it was heavy-handed interference.
“But what we could see was that the market was rigged against customers, so we were over-the-moon when the Government did pass the price cap.
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“It saved 11 million households an average of £100 a year, which put over £1 billion back into the pockets of some of the people that need the money most.
“For energy companies that are efficient and are working hard to keep prices down for customers, the price cap isn’t a problem.
“But for those companies that have become bloated and inefficient and were overcharging their customers as a result, it’s forcing them to become more efficient.
“So it’s helping 11 million households and it’s changing the industry for the better.
“While I’m proud of building a big business of our own, we’ve had even more impact through the price cap.
“I’m privileged, to be honest, because of the opportunity we’ve got at the moment to change the entire sector for the better, to bring affordable green energy to households in the 海角视频, now internationally. And to be driving the fight against climate change in one of the sectors that is one of the biggest contributors to global carbon emissions is so exciting.
“Every minute of every day, everything we are doing is making a big difference to the biggest challenge facing humanity.
“And we’re doing that whilst providing outstanding customer service and building a business we are very proud of.”