Operational Energy Reduction Project of the Year
Winner:
Sky
Integrated Energy Reduction Programme
Sky won edie’s Operational Energy Reduction Project of the Year Award for its Integrated Energy Reduction Programme, a holistic energy efficiency programme spanning its owned and leased estate, including critical data centre environments.
The challenge
Sky has sourced 100% of its energy needs from certified renewable sources since 2009, but recognises that the supply of renewable energy is finite. Between 2022 and 2024, an ESCo delivered verified reductions, but a broader strategy was needed to combat rising costs.
Benchmarking found Sky’s average office estate was 14% above REEB benchmarks, with 40% of its data centres above Uptime’s PUE benchmark. Data centres account for 70% of Sky’s annual energy demand, and their multi-stakeholder nature and perceived operational risk made agreeing efficiency changes difficult. Sky also lacked direct control over asset replacement and HVAC optimisation in its leased estate.
The solution
In 2024, Sky made the case to bring energy management in-house, with the saving of over £1m a year associated with aligning to industry benchmarks central to the business case. Following sign-off by the Group CFO, two new Energy Managers began work in 2025, and a CFO-sponsored steering group with broad business representation was introduced to manage tensions between energy saving and operations.
Sky also introduced new sustainable design standards aligned with industry best practice, bridging the gap between large projects already aligned to BREEAM and medium and small projects for which there was no standard. In 2025, a green leasing framework was introduced to mirror the sustainability standards of its owned estate in its leased estate.
How the project works
In data centres, the main tension was the perceived impact of temperature increases. Through improved hot/cold aisle separation – including air flow management and brushed floor grilles – new energy metering data and rack-by-rack temperature monitoring (EkkoSense), Sky demonstrated value and incrementally raised temperatures.
The design standards include requirements to appraise MEP plant on a whole-life carbon basis, remove natural gas and improve AV equipment efficiency, alongside lighting and metering, with pilot projects in 2025 guiding contractors through the process. Green lease terms include monthly provision of energy data, no new fossil-fuel equipment and a commitment to improve building energy performance over the lease term.
In 2025 alone, Sky invested £1.5m in energy efficiency projects.
The results
The programme has delivered a 6% (9GWh) reduction in electricity use and a 23% (4.5GWh) reduction in gas use. These reductions were achieved despite Sky constructing a 7,000m² all-electric office and a new Film Studios site in Borehamwood, and adding more than 200 EV bays – all projects which would have placed additional pressure on energy demand.
Efficiency work and monitoring technology across 15 sites in Sky’s tech estate has delivered a 0.9GWh annual reduction. Replacing more than 1,000 tungsten halide fittings with LEDs in Sky’s sports studios has delivered a 0.8GWh annual reduction and means thousands of rolls of coloured plastic are no longer required. HVAC optimisation has delivered 1.3GWh of electricity and 2.3GWh of gas reductions, independently verified to IPMVP.
Green lease terms have been negotiated into five contracts representing more than 5,000m² of office space, despite landlord resistance to some clauses. Six projects have gone through the new sustainability standards, with five more due to complete shortly, representing over 4,000m² of modified estate.
At a glance
Who: Sky
What: Integrated Energy Reduction Programme
Where: Sky’s owned and leased estate
Why: To support Sky’s SBTi target and use only its fair share of available renewable power
When: Since 2022
Runners up
Aviva
Driving Sustainable Technology through GreenOps Adoption
Aviva has created an IT GreenOps team to bring energy consumption into the same operational conversations as cost, performance and reliability, on the basis that measurement alone changes nothing without standards, governance and tools engineers can use. The team built the data, processes and standards itself and embedded them into business-as-usual, so architects and developers work within a defined framework and business teams now carry annual energy saving targets alongside their other metrics. Originally a project, it is now a permanent function. Aviva reports an estimated annual energy reduction of 160MWh, equivalent to roughly 5% of its IT energy consumption.
Cardiff Metropolitan University
Halve the Half: A No/low-cost, Data-driven Approach to Reducing Cost and Carbon
Analysis of half-hourly meter data at Cardiff Metropolitan University found that around half of its energy was consumed outside core hours of 07:00 to 19:00 on weekdays, when buildings were largely empty. Rather than investing in new plant, the estates team used existing metering and building management systems to review schedules, controls and plant behaviour, identifying faults and mismatches between operating settings and actual occupancy. Work was delivered in-house within existing budgets. By December 2025, against a 2023 baseline, gas use had fallen 33%, electricity 10% and water 20.1%, saving 2.3GWh of energy and around 10,000 cubic metres of water.
P&O Cruises
Iona: Powering Efficient Cruising
P&O Cruises combined engineering upgrades with software and crew-led change on Iona to cut energy use across both propulsion and hotel loads, which vary continuously with weather, itinerary and passenger numbers and so cannot be managed through fixed settings. Dry dock work installed an air lubrication system, advanced hull coatings and hydrodynamic improvements including thruster grids, alongside real-time energy optimisation software and onboard teams trained to act on the data. The operator reports over 10,000MWh of annual energy savings and around £2m in annual cost savings, and is now extending the optimisation software across the wider fleet.
RS Group
RS Local Branch Decarbonisation Strategy
RS Group has focused decarbonisation on its 16 RS Local trade counter branches in the UK, prioritising the most emissions-intensive sites and combining electrified heating and cooling, hot water upgrades, zoning and partitioning to reduce heated volume, and fleet electrification, supported by £2m of annual investment. Delivery ran through a net zero working group with executive-level oversight, splitting effort between quick wins, process optimisation and longer-term roadmaps. Emissions across the branch network have halved over three years. Gas-related emissions have fallen 54%, first-phase fleet electrification has cut diesel use by 30% in a year, and 19 of 21 vehicles are now electric.
ScotRail and OptimiseAI
Speed of Right at the Speed of Light
ScotRail manages around 360 stations and nine depots, from Victorian buildings to modern maintenance sheds, previously overseen through periodic reporting and separate data systems that made it impossible to locate waste as it happened. With OptimiseAI, it built digital twin models from existing smart meter data, starting with a small pilot before extending to 25 sites, eight of which – including Glasgow Queen Street, Aberdeen and Inverness – received zone-level sub-metering and demand-responsive controls linked to live passenger data. All 25 sites are now benchmarked against Energy Performance Certificate standards, and compliance reporting for SECR, ESOS and ISO 50001 is generated automatically.
Winston Taylor
London Office Refurbishment
Winston Taylor's refurbishment of 5 New Street Square set out to cut operational energy through a whole-building approach rather than isolated upgrades. Gas heating was replaced with heat pumps and the building runs on renewable electricity, removing direct fossil fuel emissions. Ventilation, heating, cooling and lighting are all linked to occupancy sensors, and smaller rooms are left unheated, relying instead on residual warmth from adjoining spaces and occupants. Sub-metering and real-time monitoring allow facilities teams to identify inefficiencies and tune systems continuously. There has been an improvement in energy efficiency of approximately 50% against the building's previous performance.