Greenwich Leisure (GLL) has become the first leisure trust in the UK to sign up to the Carbon Trust’s Carbon Management Programme and was also recently been re-accredited with the international environmental management standard, ISO 14001.

Earlier this year, the trust produced an Energy and Environment Strategy with the aim of reducing gas and electricity consumption and also launched the GLL Green brand to deliver an instantly recognisable environmental and carbon message in all communications to both staff and customers.

Energy champions have also been appointed at each leisure centre.

“As London's largest operator of public leisure facilities, GLL produces more than 27,000 tonnes of carbon, every year – equivalent to an average-sized British town,” said Andy McCabe, GLL's operations director.

“The use of energy and water is vital in the delivery of services and represents a significant proportion of our operating costs.

“Climate change, potential water shortages and rapidly rising energy costs mean the importance of increasing our sustainability through controlling consumption and reducing waste, together with our partners, is paramount.

“GLL Green was launched earlier this year to clearly communicate our goal to cut carbon emissions across all our centres as well as reduce rapidly rising energy costs and increase sustainability.

“All GLL-operated leisure centres now work to set action plans, overseen by a nominated energy champion and we have already seen carbon emissions in our centres cut by almost 10 per cent - beating this years target of 4 per cent.”

In 2008, GLL aims to further reduce energy consumption and waste to meet a second year target of 2 per cent carbon emissions reduction in centres, with objectives including solar thermal heating, grey water recycling and utilising heat recovery systems to voltage optimisation – allowing voltage to be altered so a centre only uses the power it needs.