SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
British online and retail bookmaker William Hill has moved 100% of its UK electricity supply to renewable energy sources as part of a new green commitment.
The arrangement has been in place since 1 October 2020 following a procurement tendering process which saw the operator switch energy suppliers from Grid Electricity to Total Gas and Power.
As a result of the new three-year contract with Total Gas and Power, William Hill’s energy now comes entirely from solar, wind and hydro sources, saving almost 61,500 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent to 38,000 cars in the UK or a transatlantic flight from London to Las Vegas.
“We have prioritised the Environment as being extremely important to William Hill and have committed to becoming a Carbon Neutral Business,” said William Hill’s Chief Procurement Officer, David Medori.
“We have established aggressive targets over 5 years in C02 reduction on Energy, Waste, Transportation and Water.”
In addition, the firm has embraced other environmental initiatives such as a full retail rollout of Smart Metering across all of its betting shops – numbering around 2,000 – throughout 2021, which it is hoped will further reduce CO2 emissions.
“All metrics are on target and we have an Environmental Management Forum chaired by the Chief Procurement Officer for driving through key initiatives and ensuring these are on both Operating and PLC Board agenda,” Medori added.
“The year 2020 was key in both absolute C02 reduction being driven down by nearly 50% from 2019, going fully renewable sourced electricity and the start of a full rollout program of electricity smart meters that will for the first time enable a Monitoring and Targeting program to be deployed which will drive further incremental C02 down in 2021 and 2022”.
Outside of environmental initiatives, William Hill has been pursuing other social responsibility objectives, particularly with regards to safer gambling.
Earlier this month, the bookmaker – along with fellow operators Flutter Entertainment and Bet365 – topped responsible gambling charity GambleAware’s list of donors having contributed a total of £540,000 between April and December 2020, out of an overall pledge of £1.04 million.
