GREEN PROGRESS AWARD GRUNDON


SPONSORED BY


Winner: GE Healthcare


Taking the honours in the second new award of the night was GE Healthcare’s Grove Centre site, which won the Green Progress Award, sponsored by Grundon Waste Management, a leading supplier of integrated waste management solutions.


For this inaugural title, the judges were looking for organisations which had shown the most progress in 'green' practices over the last year, with a key emphasis on sustainability and employee involvement.


The Grove Centre in Amersham is the largest UK site for GE Healthcare’s medical diagnostics division. It manufactures state-of-the-art nuclear medicine technologies that provide accurate diagnostic information for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease.


It uses lean principles to reduce waste and recycle as much as possible, including sending food waste from its on-site restaurant to an aerobic digestion plant and compacting general waste to reduce landfill and move towards using energy from waste and materials recycling facilities. Staff are encouraged to recycle wherever possible, and furniture and equipment which is no longer needed is offered to local charities and schools for re-use.


Annual waste awareness days are held to educate staff and, within the last year, The Grove Centre energy and waste action team has been formed by volunteers who are passionate about the environment and energy conservation.


The audience was told that GE Healthcare had: www.businessmag.co.uk


“demonstrated a highly inclusive approach to waste and environmental management, comprehensively embracing all of the award criteria”.


Jennifer Selby, liabilities management compliance, (pictured with trophy) who collected the award from Hilary Devey and Clayton Sullivan-Webb, finance director and company secretary at Grundon, said afterwards: “We are thrilled to win the Green Progress award. It’s a real testament to the hard work and commitment shown by the medical diagnostics team at The Grove Centre site over the past year.


“With a group of people who are willing to give up their personal time backed up by strong support from senior management, we have put in place a number of rigorous systems to drive environmental best practice. We have built good staff engagement by holding waste awareness days, sending out recycling newsletters, performing energy ‘treasure hunts’ and sharing our results and ideas.


“The judges clearly recognised that we are passionate about the environment and energy conservation – with this award, that can only increase.”


As well as progress in 'green' practices, the judges were also looking for adherence to the waste hierarchy, particularly in the 4Rs – reduce, re-use, recycle, recover – and took into account whether an organisation had a formalised environmental management system or accreditation.


Sullivan-Webb said: “We were looking for THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 12/JANUARY 13


evidence of innovation, reduced energy consumption, sustainable performance and company-wide buyin. We were delighted with the standard of entries which clearly demonstrate how organisations are working to improve their recycling performance and their wider environmental credentials.


“Particularly impressive was GE Healthcare’s combination of ‘top down’ commitment from senior management and the range of opportunities for staff involvement in decision- making.


“In this difficult trading climate it is particularly encouraging to see that organisations are still willing to devote time, energy and resources to programmes which will deliver real benefits for the environment, the communities in which they operate and increasingly their financial bottom line.”


There were five companies shortlisted for the title, and the competition was so close that the judges chose to award a joint second place to independent relocation management company HCR and Henmans LLP, one of the largest law firms in the Thames Valley.


Highly commended certificates went to First Great Western and Phabrix.


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