Paxton design and manufacture market-leading security solutions for a range of buildings with over 30,000 secured globally every year using access control and related products. The company exports to 60 countries and its global head office is in Brighton, UK.
In Security spoke to company representatives about the major achievement of becoming certified as carbon neutral in the UK, France, Germany and South Africa. Our conversations covered green initiatives both within Paxton and across the security sector.
Paxton should be proud that it has for the first time been truly able to measure its carbon footprint and focus on improvements in terms of impact on the environment. Few organisations can demonstrate their sustainability credentials in such a precise and impressive way.
Adam Stroud is the company’s CEO. He said: “Limiting our impact on the environment is important to everyone at the company and we know it matters to our customers too. The carbon neutral certification is the first step on our journey to become a net-zero company, something we plan to do well in advance of the 2050 limit. We are all focussed and working hard to make the right environmentally conscious decisions to achieve this.”
InSecurity speaks to many other companies about their environmental credentials and corporate citizenship and is naturally curious as to how businesses stay on their toes in terms of being carbon-friendly and responsible.
Katie Millis-Ward is Divisional Director of Communications at Paxton. She said: “It’s extremely important to us as a company that we continue to drive our green initiatives forward. So, we are working with the Hampshire-based agency Carbon Footprint Ltd who help us continually to monitor and measure our annual emissions. We are now in the process of developing a roadmap with them for the company’s journey to net zero.”
So, what’s the difference between “carbon neutral” and “net zero”? Carbon neutral means a company is taking care to balance the amount of carbon dioxide it emits with an equivalent offset which is typically through carbon credits. Net zero as mentioned by both Katie and Adam is broader and more ambitious. It is a situation where a company is able to offset its emissions but also reduce them significantly, and this will be across direct and indirect emissions as well as those involved in the supply chain.
Recent carbon offset projects by Paxton have included provision of safe water for communities in Zambia and investment in solar and wind farms in Thailand and India. The Zambian project is in Western Province and has seen rehabilitation of over 400 previously unusable boreholes in partnership with Village Water, a non-governmental organization that helps communities using locally available building materials.
Paxton adapt constantly and have been making changes to how they operate both before and as a direct response to the report on their carbon footprint. An obvious and exemplary change has been to switch from air freight with the more efficient and low-carbon sea freight. Paxton identified from the report in 2023 that nearly 57% of emissions came from upstream air freight. So, the switch to transport by sea was significant.
InSecurity asked Paxton whether it makes a point of partnering with companies whose own green credentials are good. The response was that partnerships are always sought with organisations who share values of environmental responsibility and corporate citizenship, but Paxton recognise that not every one of their associates will be at the stage where they can feasibly become carbon neutral.
Paxton’s route to market is through the major distributors. But like any responsive manufacturer, the company spends a lot of time with installers in order to understand how products are used in the field and to ensure that the offering develops in tune with requirements and conditions on the ground. Paxton advised us that their recent survey of installers told them that 60% have seen an increase in customers asking about eco-friendly products.
So, what about some up-to-the-minute information concerning Paxton’s efforts to be energy self-sufficient? The company told us that they are not self-sufficient just yet. They still use power from the national grid but on renewable energy tariffs, and solar panels have been installed on the Paxton Electronics Centre where the printed circuit boards are manufactured. As the headquarters complex and manufacturing facilities are developed over coming years, Paxton intend to add more renewables.
As a magazine, InSecurity notes the ever-growing range of credential types that can be used to access buildings and sites as well as the decline in numbers of plastic cards which must be good from an environmental perspective. We asked about the vogue for bamboo cards and mentioned that we understand that while ecologically sound, they can be hard to print on.
Adam said: “At Paxton, we are increasing the use of smart credentials which are purely digital and work through an individual’s smart device, taking advantage of their biometrics for extra security. They are completely free of charge to use and distribute with our access control and video management system Paxton10, as well as having some significant technological advantages over traditional cards and fobs.”
So, what was the number in the last audit with Carbon Footprint Limited? It came in at 2,541 tCO₂e.
No, that’s not something that exactly trips off the tongue! When InSecurity last visited Paxton, Adam spoke about the word “simplicity”. Simplicity in everything from product design to communication style. So, Paxton prefer to talk not about tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, this being the unit mentioned above that is used to count the six main greenhouse gases. Paxton ask us to envisage all this as approximately 1,550 economy return flights from Heathrow to New York. It’s something we can all get our heads around.
Visit the company as a member of the trade media, installer, consultant or local resident (outreach with the community is far-reaching and diverse) and you’ll be impressed with Paxton’s level of carbon literacy. It’s an example and set of cumulative case studies that should energise and motivate the rest of the industry.
