MOST SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANISATION – LOCAL AUTHORITY
Saving Trust for walk to work week. We organised a free breakfast cooked by the management for every employee that made an effort to come to work in an environmentally friendly manner and invited an advisor from the Energy Saving Trust to set up a stall and give an advice surgery on home energy saving that included one to one advice surgery sessions. All employees that made continued efforts to use alternative transport during the week were also entered into a prize giveaway for two Real Time Display energy monitors for their homes. The event was well received and had a high level of interest from employees. Further alternative transport days are planned. We have run in-house workshops providing staff with background knowledge of sustainability and climate change. As part of the workshops staff were asked to complete a questionnaire to gauge their perception and attitudes towards various environmental issues. The information for this was then used to give feedback back to staff via a newsletter filling in knowledge gaps and offering advice.
Our employee induction programme also now includes a presentation on sustainability and how it fits in at WMS. The Eco-committee was set up in April with the aim to meet every two or three months. This is comprised of employees to discuss and highlight any environmental concerns at WMS. It is hoped this will allow employees to take some ownership over environmental issues at WMS and take it solely out of the management’s hands to manifest the agenda at a more grass-roots level. It is also hoped this will help create some ‘nudge’ amongst employees and induce some peer to peer influencing on green office practice.
PARTNERSHIP
As mentioned previously WMS has plans to begin partnership working with other SME’s in this field. As part of the Pro5 group there is scope for sharing our experience although joint working has not commenced yet.
COST EFFECTIVE, INNOVATION AND PRODUCT SELECTION/DIVERSITY WMS is constantly seeking to expand its range of environmentally friendly products. We compile two green lists with every new catalogue, one for offices and one for schools. This list displays the products we sell that have environmental attributes making it easy for schools and offices to find a sustainable alternative to the product they currently use.
As well as the green lists WMS has recently launched its own range of products called the equality range. Because many of the products we sell are produced overseas, often in the Far East, we made the decision to visit ourselves and source our own goods, effectively ‘cutting out the middle man’. Whilst over there we discovered many factories with less than adequate conditions for the workers making stationery for the western market. We have since developed an ‘equality’ checklist with standards that factories must meet before we will begin a contract with them such as comfortable working space, breaks, adequate health and safety, proper equipment and a fair working wage. These products are often cheaper than the leading brands so we maintain a competitive price whilst ensuring that the workers that produced them are treated well and receive a fair wage. We have also just received FSC chain of custody certification so can now advertise FSC products in our catalogue. We will also be selling our own FSC pencils from an FSC certified supplier in China as part of our equality brand. To further our commitment to sustainable procurement WMS is also working on the Sustainable Procurement Task force Flexible Framework action plan. The plan acts as a useful blueprint as to the steps that need to be taken to truly move the sustainable procurement agenda forward. So far we have completed a sustainability risk assessment for our top 20 contracts totalling 82% of our spend. From here procurement actions and changes to product specifications will be written into the contracts.
CARBON REDUCTION COMMITMENT WMS measured its carbon footprint back to 2005. In 2009/2010 we reduced our carbon footprint by 18.77 tonnes over the previous financial year (Though it must be noted 2 of our warehouse heaters were offline for 2 ½ month which could account for some of this reduction). In 2009 the Carbon Trust completed a survey at WMS and highlighted a number of areas where WMS could reduce its carbon footprint. From here we have started some projects that should deliver clear reductions in carbon.
These include a warehouse lighting project that will enable lights to be individually turned off and to be dimmed to take advantage of natural light. This is predicted to save around 47 to 52 tonnes of CO2
a year.
We are also replacing the inefficient space heaters in the warehouse with new
SUSTAINABLE FM AWARDS 2010 |25
fuel efficient ones along with evaporative air cooling units. These are expected to bring further reductions in CO2
.
As well as this we have recently installed Solar film to the windows in parts of our office prone to high levels of over heating through convection. This should reduce the need for air conditioning through the summer months and deliver further savings of CO2
.
The delivery service we run accounts for a large amount of our emissions. To reduce these emissions, as part of our vehicle replacement strategy we have replaced all old vehicles with new ones that have the highest Euro Emissions category rating. And since 2003 we have been using bio-diesel which contains 5% reclaimed vegetable oil (usually chip fat). All delivery drivers, essential car users and key members of staff who drive regularly on behalf of WMS have also been through a SAFED (Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving) course. This involved presentations, an interactive workshop and one on one driving assessment and instruction. To further reduce emissions we changed our delivery service to set day delivery. This reduced the amount of miles travelled and number of delivery drops by 25%.
These measures should go some way to helping us reach our 10:10 target of a 10% reduction of our footprint in 2010.
CONCLUSION
This document seeks to demonstrate WMS’ commitment to the constantly evolving field of sustainability. WMS has attempted to position itself so that it can meet that challenges that sustainability brings with confidence. We believe that our approach, in critically looking at our own performance before assisting suppliers will encourage a collaborative approach. And at the other end of the supply chain by educating and communicating with consumers and employees’ (who are themselves consumers) and offering cost effective alternatives, we hope to enable the paradigm shift in behaviour and culture that is essential in bringing sustainability to demand driven markets.
New WMS lorries
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