SUSTAINABILITY AT BARRETTS KENT

Established in 1902 in East Kent, Barretts has a proven commitment to its sustainability goals, driven by family values and a strong record of social responsibility.

Our vision for a greener future forms part of our induction process, communicating that we foster a culture where sustainability is not just a target, but a shared commitment within our organisation.

We take pride in the efforts of our community to achieve the below.

SOLAR POWER:

• Barretts have invested £1.3m in the fitting of solar panels, beginning back in 2012.
• Solar panels and real-time reporting systems are now fitted to our Ashford sites and our Canterbury City Centre buildings generating 860,000 kWh of energy each year, about 200 tonnes of CO2.
• This is enough energy to drive a BMW iX3 5.7m kms, that’s over 140 times around the world.
• Almost 70% of this is used to power our buildings and our cars with the remainder fed back to the national
  grid.

VEHICLES:

• Investment of £653k has been made to install EV chargers across our sites for customer and stock vehicle charging. We now have 98 AC and 19 DC chargers in total.
• Monitoring of our solar data has also enabled us to begin vehicle charging when there is surplus solar generation, moving from 8am to 11am daily.
• In 2022 we purchased two electric minibuses to provide our complimentary courtesy shuttle service, ensuring that we don’t add to city centre pollution.
• We’ve increased the ratio of EV/Hybrid vehicles to Petrol/Diesel ones, in our demonstrator and car fleet from 3:1 to the current ratio of 1:1, taking over 50 of the more polluting vehicles off the road.

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IT:

• Our IT function is committed to Reduce > Reuse > Recycle.
• We reuse old laptops within the group to power showroom screens, refurbish appliances for new employees and 100% of obsolete items are recycled securely through a certified third party.

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RESOURCES:

• Our sales and servicing documents are now available online, taking us away from paper copies.
• This reduces the plastics used in toner cartridges and has cut the number of paper sheets by 750,000 per year, a 40% decrease compared to 2021.
• This is the equivalent of 75 trees and would weigh 3750kg, more than a Range Rover Sport.

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WASTE PRODUCTS:

• All businesses have waste products, but we try our best to reduce these. Our Parts Hub operation reuses all cardboard received with its deliveries in house to repackage items for delivery or storage. Cardboard waste at other sites is compacted in situ, to save load space and to be taken away for recycling.
• Every department separates their waste products into food waste, recycling and general waste. We estimate that almost 100% of our hazardous waste collected from our dealerships by a specialist company is recycled.
• Washing our cars is a necessity but has the potential for environmental harm due to the products used. We rigorously review all cleaning products, prioritising those with minimal environmental impact. Furthermore, every location is equipped with fully maintained advanced drainage filtering systems, specifically designed to mitigate the risk of land and water pollution.

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BUILDINGS:

• Our new buildings have been designed with sustainable credentials at the forefront. The highest efficiency LED lighting and insulation materials have reduced our use of heat in the winter and cooling in the summer.
• We’ve also made changes to our older buildings. LED and PIR lighting projects at just our BMW Ashford site in 2024, expecting to save 3900 kWh pa. This energy saving at Ashford BMW alone would heat a large home for a year.
  

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FINAL THOUGHTS

Sustainability starts on day one and is included in the induction programme for new employees. Each new member of the team is given a reusable coffee cup and water bottle for use at work to reduce paper and plastic waste.

Despite the industry move to electric vehicles, we’re proud that our electricity consumption is down 13.7% between 2021 and 2024.

Our roots were established on two wheels. Our co-founder George R Barrett, a local cycling record holder, first opened a cycle shop in the heart of Canterbury City Centre. Cycling is still enjoyed by a great number of our employees and we’re proud to offer the Cycle to Work scheme to assist with purchasing a bike. All sites have bike sheds, lockers for security and showers to freshen up before work. Contracts with our energy suppliers are 100% certified renewable.