What we can show you, and what we will not say.
Most environmental pages are a list of adjectives. This one is a list of measurements, the dates they were taken and who took them — and then a list of the things we deliberately do not claim, with the reason for each. The second list is the more useful one.
Scope
This covers UniversalContacts, made by Towpath Digital Ltd. It is not an audited report and we are not claiming it is one: no company of our size is required to publish anything, which is exactly why what is here has to be checkable. Three sections follow. The first is measured by us. The second and third are stated by other people, attributed and linked, because repeating somebody else’s claim as your own is how the last environmental line on this site went wrong.
The office runs on solar, and we have the meter readings
The company is run from a 55ft widebeam on the River Great Ouse, off grid since 19 June 2026. That is not a lifestyle detail here: it is the reason the numbers below exist, because when you generate your own electricity you end up measuring it. The instruments are Victron Cerbo GX with a BMV-712 battery monitor, a SmartSolar MPPT charge controller and a MultiPlus-II inverter, plus per-circuit energy plugs, all logged through Home Assistant.
| Measured | Figure | When | How |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solar generation, midsummer | 4 to 12 kWh a day, averaging about 8.5 | 19 to 25 June 2026 | Victron SmartSolar MPPT via Home Assistant |
| Metered office load | about 5.4 kWh a day across the circuits with a meter on them | 18 to 25 June 2026, seven-day average | per-circuit energy plugs via Home Assistant |
| The single biggest load | a server drawing 116 W, about 2.8 kWh a day | 18 to 25 June 2026, seven-day average | per-circuit energy plug via Home Assistant |
What the measurement actually changed
On the sunniest days of the year the battery still finished the day below its 50 per cent floor. The measurement said the always-on computing was about half the daily budget, so on 28 June 2026 that server was switched off for good and what it did moved to a data centre that runs on renewable power. It is a smaller claim than "we run on solar" and it is the true one.
Those readings are from midsummer, which is the flattering end of the year. We have not published a winter figure because we have not finished measuring one. When we have, it will go here whatever it says.
The site runs on renewable power
The profile behind every card is hosted with Krystal. Their claims, read on 16 September 2026:
- their data centres run on 100 per cent renewable energy
- a certified B Corp since early 2023
- a member of 1% for the Planet
- a PUE of 1.1 at Netwise East, the UK data centre
- a tree planted every month for every customer, and we are a customer
Worth saying plainly: the tree in that list is theirs, not ours, and their own guidance argues that tree planting is the least useful number to judge a host by. We agree. The renewable supply and the PUE are the ones that matter.
The cards are made by a supplier who funds tree planting
Every NFC card we sell — plastic, bamboo and metal — is made by NFC Tagify. They say: “For every order, we plant a tree with Ecologi’s help.”
Read on 16 September 2026. The evidence is 3,928 trees funded and 10 tonnes of CO₂e avoided on their public Ecologi profile.
That is a tree for every order they take, which is not the same as a tree for every order you place. See the first entry below.
The one environmental argument that is actually ours
A printed card is reprinted when a phone number changes, when somebody moves desk, when a job title is a version out of date. A card that points at a live profile is not: the details move and the card stays in the wallet. That is the only environmental claim on this site that is about the product rather than about a supplier, and it is structural rather than aspirational — it is what the thing does.
The same logic runs through how we ship. Paid orders are held for 24 hours so that one supplier order can cover several customers. We built that to get a better price. It also means fewer parcels, and it is the reason for the first line in the next section.
What we do not claim, and why
This is the part we would want to read on somebody else’s site.
“One tree planted per order”
Our card supplier plants a tree for every order they take, and we do not send them one order per customer. Orders are held for 24 hours so that one supplier order can cover several customers, which is fewer parcels and a lower price. So on a good day three customers would have caused one tree between them. The line was on this site until 16 September 2026 and it should not have been.
“Carbon neutral”
We have not measured our emissions, so we cannot say we have cancelled them. Two of our suppliers describe themselves this way; that is their claim to make and evidence, not ours to repeat.
“Eco-friendly, sustainable, green”
None of them mean anything on their own, and the CMA Green Claims Code is mostly about exactly these words. Where we have a specific thing we can show you, it is above.
“A lighter footprint than a plastic card”
Probably true of bamboo against PVC, and we have not done the assessment that would let us say so. It was on the bamboo card page as a headline until 16 September 2026.
Social and governance, briefly and honestly
The E above is the strong part. The rest, so that a procurement form can be answered without anybody guessing:
- Governance. Towpath Digital Ltd, company number 16913912, two directors, registered with the ICO. Sub-processors are named in the privacy policy rather than described as “trusted partners”. Account isolation is enforced in the database, not in the application. Details on trust & security.
- Social. Thinner, and we are not going to pad it. Two people, no employees yet, and no community programme to describe. What we can say is how we sell: no dark patterns, no subscription you have to ring up to cancel, and a price on the page. See no subscription.
Checking any of this
The supplier and host links above go to their own pages, not to a summary of ours. If a figure here is out of date, or you want the winter energy numbers when they exist, email hello@universalcontacts.co.uk and you will get an answer from a person.