I’ve been working at Firms Home for simply over a yr now. And after I was given the chance to work with the surroundings in our Estates staff, I jumped on the probability.
The surroundings is essential to us
All of Companies House’s strategic goals have one factor in widespread: they contemplate the surroundings.
Whether or not it’s delivering a terrific buyer expertise by means of our sensible providers, or ensuring the info on our register evokes belief and confidence, we contemplate the surroundings in every little thing we do.
“However how do you do that?”, I hear you ask.
We use an Surroundings Administration System (EMS) which permits us to observe all of our actions in order that we will be certain we’re compliant with all environmental laws. This EMS has held the ISO 14001 standard for 17 years, an internationally recognised surroundings administration customary.
We’ve made nice strides in direction of assembly our Greening Authorities Commitments (GGC) and we’re effectively on our solution to reaching the targets set for 2020 to 2025.
Earlier than the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Firms Home was seeing a downward development with its carbon footprint:
- 1,850 CO2 tonnes, 2017 to 2018
- 1,667 CO2 tonnes, 2018 to 2019
- 1,369 CO2 tonnes, 2019 to 2020
What we’ve accomplished to this point
This sensible progress is testomony to the tradition of sustainability at Firms Home and the laborious work put in by the Surroundings Administration Staff and the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Some nice initiatives have been executed throughout Firms Home contributing to those optimistic outcomes:
LED Lighting
Should you’ve ever been to our headquarters on Crown Manner in Cardiff, you’ll know that it’s a fairly large constructing. And with giant buildings come a whole lot of lights! Regularly, the outdated lights have been changed with extra vitality environment friendly LED bulbs together with sensors to make sure that they don’t keep on longer than required.
These modifications have had a optimistic affect on our consumption and forgetting to show the lights off in your means out the door has develop into a factor of the previous. Simply have a look at the outcomes we’ve had to this point.
Our electrical energy related carbon dioxide emissions have been:
- 1,445 CO2 tonnes, 2017 to 2018
- 1,309 CO2 tonnes, 2018 to 2019
- 1,065 CO2 tonnes, 2019 to 2020
ZIP Faucets
We love our sizzling drinks at Firms Home. Earlier than the pandemic, we commonly used to see workers within the workplace kitchens grabbing their morning espresso or a cuppa, so you possibly can think about what number of kettles it took to maintain our workforce going.
Now we’ve ZIP Taps that present ice-cold or boiling water close to instantaneously. These faucets not solely use much less vitality, but in addition cut back the quantity of water we use. No extra guessing how a lot water to place within the kettle!
Biomass boiler
As with most giant outdated buildings, it takes a whole lot of vitality to maintain our Crown Manner workplace heat. To decrease our reliance on gasoline, we’ve put in a biomass boiler to energy the heating system by burning wooden pellets, which is extra environment friendly than standard gasoline boilers. We additionally be certain to buy our pellets from respected sustainable sources.
Our gasoline related carbon dioxide emissions have been:
- 97.52 CO2 tonnes, 2017 to 2018
- 95.64 CO2 tonnes, 2018 to 2019
- 89.09 CO2 tonnes, 2019 to 2020
Enterprise journey
A part of our tradition of sustainability contains our angle in direction of enterprise journey. Pre-COVID noticed numerous our workers transfer between places of work, meet with exterior associate organisations and so forth. Throughout this time, we launched a brand new journey portal which requested extra questions on whether or not journey was an absolute necessity and the technique of journey wanted.
This platform, together with our ever-improving IT options (like Microsoft Groups, Skype) and information sharing platforms (OneDrive and SharePoint) meant our must journey for enterprise declined. Pre-COVID, it had decreased by 30%.
Our enterprise journey related carbon dioxide emissions have been:
- 82.62 CO2 tonnes, 2017 to 2018
- 57.32 CO2 tonnes, 2018 to 2019
- 55.44 CO2 tonnes, 2019 to 2020
Waste
With over 1,000 folks working at our Crown Manner workplace (earlier than the pandemic, in fact), a whole lot of waste is generated. Now we have a bin for every little thing! The Environmental Working Group has inspired a tradition of lowering waste and recycling to nice impact.
The quantity of waste we generate is dropping and within the monetary yr 2019 to 2020, Firms Home solely despatched 1.62 tonnes of waste to landfill. The remaining is both recycled or incinerated with vitality reclamation.
Our complete waste was:
- 242.91 tonnes, 2017 to 2018
- 242.22 tonnes, 2018 to 2019
- 215.82 tonnes, 2019 to 2020
Elimination of one-use plastic
There was a terrific push to take away one-time use plastic from Authorities Estates. Firms Home has made nice progress in direction of reaching this objective. We have changed all plastic cutlery and cups with extra sustainable options.
On our solution to internet zero
If the COVID-19 pandemic has proven us something, it is our skill to adapt to an ever-changing surroundings.
New methods of working have been shortly launched to nice impact, and whereas the instant impact on Firms Home’s carbon footprint is unsure, it has offered a possibility to take inventory of our least-efficient features.
This can inform our future environmental technique, permitting us to fulfill our Greening Authorities Commitments and proceed our path to internet zero.
Learn extra about our strategy to minimise the negative impacts on our environment.