2025 ESG Review is Published
Horizon has published its Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) report for 2025. This looks at how the company managed its environmental impact, whether it behaved as a socially responsible business and whether its governance meets modern standards.
The report was researched and written by independent consultants, Sustainable Advantage. Horizon publishes these reports each year.
The report covers the three original Horizon sites; at Cannock Chase, on the Clyde Coast and at the Hurlet to the southwest of Glasgow. It does not cover two sites that joined the group at the end of the year: at Kirkleatham in North Yorkshire and at South Leicester. All Horizon sites will be reviewed in next year’s report.
During 2025, Horizon continued to drive forward positive ESG changes. Highlights were:
- Our sites generated an average of 0.17 tonnes of carbon dioxide per cremation in 2025, compared to an industry average of 0.19.
- Our sites generated over 9,000kWh of renewable electricity in 2025, saving 1,600kg of carbon emissions.
- We reviewed of our onsite renewable energy generation and signed off the capital expenditure to instal an additional 86.8 Kilowatt Peak (kWp) of solar capacity in 2026. This will mean that each site will generate around 20% of its electricity requirements from solar panels.
- We commissioned an independent review of future fuels for our cremators. As a consequence, we have decided that new cremators commissioned by Horizon will be hybrid machines.
- We continued planting trees at our sites. Between 2019 and 2026 we have planted nearly 13,000 trees.
- There were zero environmental incident or accidents across our sites in 2025, continuing the pattern for 2023 and 2024.
- 46% of our staff were female in 2025.
- 68% of our full-time staff had professional Health and Safety qualifications.
- We donated £50,000 to local charities in 2025.
Stephen Byfield, lead Director on ESG for Horizon said,
“Everyone at Horizon is fortunate to work in a beautiful green setting and be at the centre of their local community. We want to keep things that way. We believe that if you measure your performance, you can then take steps to reduce your carbon footprint, hire responsibly and get better at contributing to people and causes in the areas where you are based. This report shows our progress to that end, showing what we have done well and where we can improve.”