Company: BCS
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000312069-25-000114
Chunk: 73

Company: BARCLAYS PLC
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 20-F
Chunk 73
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, we continued to focus on: &#8226; reducing our energy demand and improving the energy efficiency of our global real estate portfolio &#8226; working on electrification of our global real estate portfolio heating and cooling systems and company vehicles &#8226; working on renewable electricity sourcing and installing on-site renewable electricity capacity across our global real estate portfolio. Global real estate portfolio Reducing energy demand and increasing energy efficiency To reduce our energy demand and increase energy efficiency, we continued to right-size our global real estate portfolio, and expanded our UK energy optimisation programme to global sites. The programme aims to reduce energy demand of existing infrastructure during periods of low or no occupancy and to increase energy efficiency during normal operating hours, contributing in 20241 to approximately 8.26 GWh in energy savings at our corporate offices and 0.33 GWh at our retail branches. For example: &#8226; As part of the programme our engineers carried out evening inspections at 1 Churchill Place, London2 where they identified cases where equipment was running unnecessarily, even though there was low or no occupancy. As a result of these inspections in October 2024 the engineers adjusted our building management system (BMS) settings, for example by automatically switching off some of the large screens across the building, resulting in energy demand reductions. &#8226; In 2024, through the energy optimisation programme and infrastructure upgrades, we also increased our energy efficiency during normal operating hours. For example, we upgraded our chillers and BMS at our Sunderland corporate office3, resulting in energy efficiencies at that site. &#8226; We right-sized and improved the sustainability of three of our retail branches by moving into new sites. The designs of the new sites focused on energy efficient infrastructure installations including new lighting and Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems and in some instances solutions to reduce heat and cooling loss by including lobbies. All of these efforts have resulted in a 49% decrease in energy consumption across our global real estate portfolio against a 2018 baseline and progress with our global corporate offices energy use intensity (EUI) milestone to 225 kWh/m2/year in comparison to 229 kWh/m2/ year4 in 2023. As we continue implementing our energy optimisation programme and investing in new efficient equipment, our energy savings may take time to materialise as we adjust our building operations to these changes. Electrification and reducing reliance on fossil- fuel-powered infrastructure In 2024, we continued to electrify our infrastructure