We're working across our businesses to reduce the resources we use across our business.

Our electricity generation business uses the most significant amount of resources. Each year we still have to burn millions of tonnes of fossil fuels to generate electricity. As our generation portfolio evolves, and we change the way we generate electricity, we anticipate that our use of fossil fuels will reduce.

In 2009, we generated 18% less energy compared to 2008, primarily because of a reduction in demand due to the recession. The amount of coal we used was lower, because we used more natural gas.

We also use large quantities of water for our electricity generation, so our water use has fallen too. The majority of the water we use is returned back to its source afterwards, but a percentage is lost as water vapour in cooling towers.

The amount of fuel used by our commercial fleet is dependant on a number of operational factors including work scheduling, the location of jobs, routine maintenance and emergency call outs. By continuing the installation of Telematic devices across our commercial fleet, we can track vehicle performance and driver behaviours.

In our Energy Solutions business, we have introduced a number of measures to reduce the amount of fuel consumed:

Introduction of the OMS (real-time scheduling) system within Meter Operations to improve scheduling and reduce mileage

The OMS is a hand held electronic device, which directs field workers to their next job, a replacement for the old paper scheduling system. Rather than having a list of jobs for the day, the OMS plans the next job only when the engineer has completed their current job, meaning that the device can automatically direct them to their closest next job. The main benefits are that the OMS device reduces the number of miles driven and prevents unnecessary travel because cancelled jobs are removed from the system.

Introduction of Digipen system (electronic information) within Meter Operations
Digipen is an electronic hand held device on which customers can sign for job completion, instead of on the previous paper system.

Smarter Training programme within Meter Operations: saving over 35,000 miles and nearly 9 tonnes of CO2 emissions

When the Smarter Training programme incorporated a single small change, it achieved these major savings. Instead of having all field workers travelling to the trainer, the trainer now goes out to them where they work, so only one person is travelling. It was that simple!

We've also reviewed the volume of stationery products we use.

In 2008, E.ON purchased 224 tonnes of paper. Only 37% (83 tonnes) of this was 100% recycled stock, so in 2009 we reduced the amount of paper purchased to 179 tonnes, of which 86% (154 tonnes) was 100% recycled. This saved:

• 1,500 trees
• 4,620,000 litres of water in the paper production process
• 462,000 kWh in the paper production process (enough to power 154 three bedroom homes)

Recycled paper also creates 95% less air pollution compared to the creation of virgin paper.

The "Globe and Tick" environmental range of paper from our main stationery supplier highlights environmentally friendly product ranges. In 2009, we increased our ordering of this range and 47% of all the products ordered were "Globe and Tick"

Through stationery amnesties and an "order what you need" programme we've reduced our orders and also achieved a saving of £509,096, compared to 2008.