Blog post by Scott McLear, Senior Digital Manager at RoS

Earth Hour is the world’s largest demonstration of support for action on climate change. Last year, millions of people around the world got involved and 2017 is no different. The Registers of Scotland are supporting this initiative by switching off the lights at our offices in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

How are we supporting Earth Hour?

At our Edinburgh office, Meadowbank House, we will switch off all the internal and external lights for the hour. In addition, we’ll be switching off the external building lights permanently to show our commitment to reducing our environmental impact.

In our Glasgow office, St Vincent Plaza — a multi-occupied building — we will have all our internal lights switched off on our floor during Earth Hour.

What else is RoS doing to reduce our emissions?

• RoS has relocated to a new building in Glasgow at St Vincent Plaza which has a BREEAM excellent environmental accreditation. The building was chosen in part to ensure that going forward it is capable of adapting to climate change in Scotland with milder wetter winters and warmer summers.

• The building has a (HVAC) Heating Ventilation and Cooling system which is designed to ensure a comfort level can be maintained within expected future climate change conditions. Moving to an electrical system is more sustainable as more renewable energy is generated to supply our energy requirements. (Scotland generated almost 58% of its electrical consumption from renewable energy in 2016).

• The lighting system at our Glasgow site is all LED which uses less energy and has modern controls that allow lights to automatically come on and switch off with motion and daylight sensors. The lighting can also help to reduce the effects of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). During the fit-out a number of new LED lights were removed and these have been reused at Meadowbank House to reduce waste as part of a continuing lighting upgrade at this site.

• We are using new ways of working with supporting technologies which has allowed RoS to reduce its floor space in Glasgow by 50%, reducing our carbon footprint whilst making best use of our new workspace. Using more digital technologies allows RoS to reduce waste (less paper, less mail, less travel) all helping to reduce our environmental impact whilst becoming more sustainable.

• RoS has installed resilient IT infrastructure using virtualization and cloud technologies to ensure that future climate change impacts can be managed, ensuring that RoS can operate as a business having planned to reduce the effects of climate change now and in the future.

Follow the team via @RegistersOfScot on Twitter and on Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube for more updates. Want to comment? Let us know below!