Vegan Energy Supply

At Ecotricity, our mission is to fight climate change. As an energy company, the best way we can do this is to end the use of fossil fuels by giving people an alternative – green energy.

Green electricity

Ecotricity was the first energy company to offer its customers green electricity. We started with one windmill in Gloucestershire and have carried on building new wind and solar parks around Britain. Whenever a home or business switches to Ecotricity for their electricity, they stop using fossil fuel to power their home and start using green energy.

Other energy companies have followed our lead, and today around 33% of the energy used in the UK comes from green sources. But there’s still a long way to go, and there are still fossil fuel power stations across the country, coughing carbon dioxide into the air. We want to stop that by continuing to build wind and solar parks as we grow, as well as exploring other ways of producing electricity sustainably.

Green gas

Across the UK, we still heat our homes and businesses using fossil fuels – mainly natural gas. About 1% of the gas we supply today is green gas from sustainable sources. The rest is carbon neutralised gas – we invest in carbon reduction programmes to cancel out the carbon burned.

This isn’t our ideal solution, and at first, we thought the best route was for the country to switch from gas to green electricity for its heating and cooking. However, we now see green gas as the way forward. We believe we can build enough green gas mills – making biomethane from grass cuttings – to replace natural gas in the grid. When the grass grows back, it absorbs the carbon dioxide created by burning green gas. Then we cut the grass and make more green gas, and the sustainable cycle repeats itself.

Our vision

We’ve come a long way. Every new customer who joins Ecotricity reduces the amount of fossil fuel burned to produce electricity. Our aim now is to remove fossil fuel natural gas from the grid and replace it with green gas.

By joining Ecotricity, you’re helping us make that happen. We’ll invest your bills in building new wind, sun and green gas mills.

Our manifesto

Our focus on energy is part of our wider vision for a zero carbon Britain

Our mission to end the use of fossil fuels is part of our wider agenda, as set out by our founder Dale Vince in his book, Manifesto.

In Manifesto, Dale explains how the climate emergency needs to be tackled across the three key areas of the economy that generate the most carbon emissions: energy, transport and food.

In Energy

As Britain’s leading green energy company, Ecotricity supplies green electricity and gas to homes and businesses across the UK. We’ve built wind and sun mills up and down the country and supply our customers with 100% green electrcity. Now we’re leading the way by building green gas mills with the aim of making Britain’s gas supply 100% sustainable. See the Our green energy section of our site for more details on our ventures in energy.

In Transport

One of our main initiatives in transport is The Electric Highway, a charging network for electric vehicles across Britain. Using The Electric Higway, motorists can charge their EVs using clean, green electricity, generated renewably with wind and sun power. We are also active in the development of high performance electric cars and motorbikes.

In Food

Our energy and food commitments intersect with our provision of vegan certified energy. The factory farming of animals is a huge contributor to global carbon emissions and by products of this industrial model are used to generate electricity. We’ll have no part in that. In addition, The Devil’s Kitchen is one of our sister companies in the Ecotricity group. It already produces vegan food which is served at Forest Green Rovers FC, provides healthy dinners to schools and will soon be available in the shops.

Founded in 1995, Ecotricity was the world’s first green energy company. Throughout our history we have been Britain’s green energy pioneers, and today we stand apart from the rest as the country’s greenest energy company.

The first energy company to offer customers green energy, we went on to build Britain’s first megawatt windmill and the country’s first grid-scale solar park. Our innovation in the production of biomethane will soon lead to the country’s first truly green gasmills, making sustainable gas out of grass cuttings on an industrial scale.

25 years ago, green energy didn’t exist. By introducing it to the market we kick-started the Global Green Energy Movement and we continue to lead the way. We are the only energy company to have declared a climate emergency.

Green electricity

Our electricity is 100% green – made from the sun, the wind and the sea. We generate about 20% of it ourselves and the rest comes from other green generators.

What makes Ecotricity different from other energy companies, including the ‘green’ ones, is that we turn our customers’ bills into new sources of green energy. We’re building new wind and sun parks across the country.

Plus, we’re always researching and developing newer, bigger and more efficient ways of generating green electricity. Our goal is to completely replace electricity made by burning fossil fuels.

Vegan energy

It’s hard to imagine using animals to generate energy, but it happens. For example, manure from factory farms is burned as biomass or used in anaerobic digestion vats to produce biomethane. Animals are exploited to produce about 1% of the UK’s energy, which goes to around 60% of homes. Four of the big six energy companies and four of the leading so called green energy companies all have animal waste in their fuel mix.

But that’s only part of the story. Livestock farming is one of the biggest contributors to carbon emissions in the UK and around the world.

We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be greener and more ethical if animals weren’t used to generate energy?’ So, we reviewed all our energy sources and eliminated anything involving animals. Ecotricity is the only energy company in the world certified as vegan by both the Vegan Society and Viva!, the vegan charity.

Bills into Mills

What makes Ecotricity different from other energy companies is that we take the money we make from our customers’ bills and use it to build new forms of green energy.

We call it Bills into Mills and it means that by paying your bill every month you’re helping fight climate change. Every new windmill or solar park we build reduces Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels to generate electricity.

While our competitors buy and trade energy certificates, we make the stuff. And when other energy companies pay dividends to their shareholders, isn’t it nice to know that with Ecotricity your money is being put to good use?

What is greenwashing?

Greenwashing – claiming something is greener than it really is – has become widespread in the energy market. The regulator OFGEM is considering taking steps to control it, and we hope they do.

A number of energy companies claim green credentials for themselves or for some of their tariffs, but are their claims genuine? There are three levels of activity that energy companies engage in, from the superficial to the impactful.

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