Our sustainability
commitments.
How DS Electrical is reducing environmental impact and giving back to Somerset — with honest disclosures, real timelines, and no greenwashing.
More procurement teams — councils, housing associations, large commercial clients — are asking for an ESG declaration before placing work. This page is our honest answer: what we already do, what’s in progress, and what we deliberately don’t claim.
Every statement here is true today. When something changes, this page changes with it.
Reducing operational carbon
A single-engineer business has limits on what it can decarbonise overnight. Here’s where we are, and where we’re heading.
Glastonbury-based, 40-minute radius
We work a strict 40-minute drive radius from Glastonbury — Wells, Shepton Mallet, Bath, Frome, Midsomer Norton, Street and surrounding villages. Local jobs cut travel emissions and mean less time in the van for the same revenue.
Vehicle: diesel today, EV by 2027
Honest disclosure: our current works van is diesel. We’re tracking the electric panel-van market (Vauxhall Vivaro-e, Ford E-Transit Custom, VW ID. Buzz Cargo) and plan to transition by 2027 when range, payload and second-hand availability all line up. We don’t pretend to be EV-fleet today.
Tools and battery charging
Cordless tool batteries currently charge from the mains at the workshop. We don’t have our own solar PV yet — a future home install is on the roadmap. We don’t claim solar charging we haven’t got.
Where the waste actually goes
Every job produces packaging, offcuts and stripped-out kit. None of it ends up fly-tipped — here’s the route for each waste stream.
- Cardboard & packaging — collected on site and taken back to the recycling centre at end of week. Manufacturer boxes are bulky; we don’t bin them.
- Cable offcuts — copper recycled. Twin-and-earth, SWA tails and singles offcuts are stripped and dropped at a local Somerset scrap merchant. Copper is a high-value recyclable; landfilling it is daft.
- Old consumer units, MCBs, RCDs, isolators — taken to Mendip Skip Hire as WEEE-categorised electrical waste so it’s processed under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations.
- Old fluorescent tubes and CFLs — these contain mercury and cannot go in general waste. Disposed at Mendip Hazardous Waste (or equivalent licensed facility) where they’re processed under hazardous-waste rules.
- Asbestos — if we encounter suspected asbestos-containing material (older bakelite fittings, asbestos-bound textiles around old wiring, AIB ceilings) work stops immediately. The area is isolated, the customer is told, and an HSE-licensed asbestos contractor handles removal. We don’t disturb it ourselves.
- Lithium-ion batteries (cordless tool packs at end of life) — returned to the manufacturer take-back scheme or dropped at a household recycling centre lithium battery point, never binned.
What we recommend on every job
The biggest carbon impact a sparky has isn’t the van — it’s what we leave behind in the building. Every report and every quote includes efficiency advice where it’s relevant.
LED retrofit on every EICR
Where halogen, fluorescent or older filament lamps are still in use, we flag them on the report with a typical 60–80% lighting energy reduction from a full LED retrofit. We’ll quote the swap if the customer wants it.
Smart heating — Hive & Nest
We fit and commission Hive and Nest smart thermostats. Programmable, learning schedules and zone control typically cut wasted heat in older properties. We don’t install heating brands outside that scope.
EV charging — Type A RCBO
Domestic EV chargers (7 kW) installed to BS 7671 Section 722, always with a Type A RCBO for DC fault protection. Supports the household’s decarbonisation if they’ve gone EV.
Solar PV & battery storage — specialist referral
We do not install solar PV, battery storage, or hybrid inverters. It’s a specialist trade with its own MCS scheme requirements, and we won’t pretend otherwise. If you ask, we’ll point you to a Somerset specialist installer rather than take work we’re not certified for.
Money that stays in Somerset
Procurement spend has a multiplier effect — pound-for-pound, money paid to a regional supplier is more likely to stay in the local economy than money paid to a national chain.
- Regional wholesaler preference — cable, accessories and consumer-unit components bought from local Somerset/South West wholesale branches where price and quality are similar to a national chain. The branch staff know us by name; we know them.
- Charity callouts — we offer one or two free EICRs per year for registered Somerset charities (capacity-dependent). Get in touch if you’re a small local charity needing a five-yearly inspection.
- Apprentice mentorship — not currently. DS Electrical is a single-engineer business and we’re not actively hiring or taking on apprentices in 2026. When that changes we’ll update this page; we won’t pretend to run a training pipeline we don’t.
The rulebooks behind the work
Sustainability without safety is theatre. Here are the published standards every DS Electrical job is signed off against.
- BS 7671:2018 + Amendment 2:2022 — the current IET Wiring Regulations (18th Edition Amd 2). Every certificate references the current clause numbering.
- Type A RCBO — mandatory on EV chargers. BS 7671 Section 722 requires DC fault protection on EV charging points; we always specify Type A. Never Type B for residential 7 kW installs.
- Part P notification via NAPIT 66245. Notifiable domestic work in kitchens, bathrooms, outdoors and on new circuits is registered with Building Control through our Competent Person Scheme and the homeowner gets a Building Regulations Compliance Certificate within 30 days.
- CHAS 158368 — SSIP-recognised health & safety pre-qualification, audited annually. Required by most housing-association, local-authority and commercial procurement frameworks.
- WEEE Regulations 2013 — followed for all stripped-out electrical waste; we use licensed processing facilities.
What we’re not
A lot of trade websites have a green leaf in a footer and a sentence about “working sustainably”. Here’s the unglossy version.
We’re not perfect
Diesel works van. No solar on the workshop. Single-engineer business. We’re a local sparky, not a corporate ESG department.
We don’t greenwash
If a claim isn’t true today — EV van, solar charging, apprentice scheme — it doesn’t go on this page. The changes we’re committing to have real timelines attached.
Customer benefit
You get an honest sparky, with honest claims, honest costs, and honest paperwork. That’s the version of sustainability that holds up under procurement scrutiny.
Procurement teams: if you need this page formatted as a PDF ESG declaration for a tender pre-qualification, email [email protected] and we’ll send a current copy on company letterhead.
Honest sparky.
Honest paperwork.
Local Somerset coverage, six independent accreditations, and a sustainability page that tells you what we don’t do as well as what we do.
Direct Dan Stevens, Director: 07889 334849 Dan Street, Director: 07983 106928