Ecotricity has become Britain’s first green energy company to be listed in the Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250, which ranks Britain’s leading mid-sized businesses.
It’s the first time Ecotricity has been listed in the report, which has been running for 12 years and features iconic brand names such as Arsenal FC, Barbour, Dr Martens, Nando’s, Skyscanner and Wagamama.
The listing is a coup for the sector, which has been growing rapidly in the UK. Renewable energy now makes up a quarter of the UK’s electricity supply, according to government figures.
There have been a number of new 100 per cent green suppliers enter the market in the last year, including Bulb Energy and Octopus Energy, all vying for share of a market that is delivering lower costs to consumers and lower carbon emissions for the UK.
Ecotricity was the world’s first green energy company and has grown rapidly over the past five years, with turnover up from £44m in 2011 to £131m in 2016, and customer numbers up fourfold, from 48,000 to nearly 200,000.
The company has gained a reputation for good customer service and has received the lowest number of complaints in the industry for the last six years. Staff numbers are up from less than 200 in 2011 to around 800 today.
The achievement shows the rapid progression of Ecotricity, its founder Dale Vince and the renewables industry in Britain over the past twenty years, as clean energy has gone from a pipe dream to a reality, which makes business and environmental sense.
Dale Vince, Ecotricity founder, said: “For me, being in this list reflects the coming of age of our work. In twenty years green energy has come a long way from its roots – the preserve of academics, hippies and dreamers. Green energy is the number one choice and firmly the direction of travel for the whole world now – as it needs to be.”
After leaving school, Dale became a new age traveller and lived “off grid”, generating his own power through a small windmill. It was this sustainable lifestyle that inspired Dale to launch Ecotricity.
Dale’s mission was and remains to change the way energy is made and used in Britain, and the company now supplies 100% renewable electricity and green gas to households and businesses across the country.
But that mission has expanded over recent years, and now includes the three causes of 80% of all personal carbon footprints – Energy, Transport and Food. As well as building wind and solar parks, Ecotricity has installed the world’s first national electric car network, which now has almost 300 electricity pumps capable of charging a car in just half an hour.
The group is also planning a 100 acre sports and green technology centre, dubbed Eco Park, next to the M5. Eco Park could create more than 4,000 jobs, as well as house a new stadium for Forest Green Rovers FC, the world’s greenest football club, of which Dale Vince is chairman.
