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Our environmental commitments

Capital One as an international enterprise shares a common set of environmental principles. We’re committed to addressing climate change through sustainable business practices, including reducing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing energy consumption, limiting waste and conserving water.

Capital One UK is just one small part of the global business, but we are still committed to the same climate and environmental goals as our US parent company.

In the UK…

We employ just over 1,800 associates across two UK offices. Trent House in Nottingham is our headquarters and where most of our associates work, while we also have two floors of the White Collar Factory in central London.

How we're creating a greener business

As a big employer any change we make can lead to significant gains. These are just some of the ways we’re making Capital One UK greener:

Smarter energy use

We’re always striving for greater energy efficiencies in both our UK offices.

  • We use 100% renewable electricity in Nottingham sourced from solar, wind and hydro.
  • We’ve also implemented Envio, a smart energy tool, in both offices. It lets us optimise energy saving opportunities by making real-time adjustments to temperature settings, as well as the times that lights and machinery is on or off.
  • Since 2019 we’ve reduced electricity consumption by 29% between our two UK offices

   


Saving water

All the taps in Trent House use  to reduce water usage. Between 2018 and 2019, we reduced the water consumption in our offices by 11%. We aim to go further and reduce it by 20% by 2025.

Reducing Waste 
None of the waste from our Nottingham office goes to landfill. Instead, it’s incinerated as part of the city’s heating scheme, providing heat and hot water to the building.

Sustainability
We changed our paper supplier in 2023 so we only use Woodland trust accredited paper. Our paper consumption for that year resulted in the planting of the equivalent of four tennis courts worth of native UK trees, equating to a saving of 43 tons of CO2.

Reducing food waste
Our catering team is committed to ensuring we produce no more than 3% food waste. What food waste we do have is processed using anaerobic digestion. This produces methane that can be used to make renewable energy and a rich fertiliser that is used in farming.

Taking the green initiative 

Our associate-led UK Green Team is a volunteer network driving positive environmental initiatives. They work closely with our facilities team to improve sustainability in our working spaces. They’ve taken the lead encouraging teams and associates to recognise when they’re being wasteful and what they can do to be greener.

Here's how we're making Capital One UK Greener

  • We’ve introduced coffee cup recycling stations for the disposable cups served in our offices. Between September 2022 and April 2023 we saved over 25,000 cups from landfill.
  • We promote commuter benefits to associates to reduce emissions generated by them driving to work. These include discounts on annual train season tickets, tram passes, and bikes through the Cycle2Work scheme.
  • We’re committed to reducing waste on internal communications and awareness campaigns. So we’re constantly looking for sustainable alternatives to things like posters, handouts and branded merchandise.

Making meaningful partnerships

We’ve worked with Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust since 2019, supporting to fund their work to care for over 40 nature reserves across the county. In 2021, we donated £10,000 which enabled a dipping platform to be built at Attenborough Nature Reserve. While they help us find ways in which we can engage our employees and make our offices more environmentally and wildlife friendly.

Get the bigger picture

To find out more about Capital One’s journey to greater sustainability you can read our US parent company’s latest Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report.