I’ve been working at Firms Home for simply over a yr now. And after I was given the chance to work with the setting in our Estates group, I jumped on the probability.
The setting is vital to us
All of Companies House’s strategic goals have one factor in widespread: they contemplate the setting.
Whether or not it’s delivering an excellent buyer expertise via our sensible companies, or ensuring the information on our register conjures up belief and confidence, we contemplate the setting in all the pieces we do.
“However how do you do that?”, I hear you ask.
We use an Setting Administration System (EMS) which permits us to observe all of our actions in order that we are able to ensure we’re compliant with all environmental laws. This EMS has held the ISO 14001 standard for 17 years, an internationally recognised setting administration normal.
We’ve made nice strides in the direction of assembly our Greening Authorities Commitments (GGC) and we’re nicely on our technique to attaining the targets set for 2020 to 2025.
Earlier than the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Firms Home was seeing a downward pattern 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 performed to date
This sensible progress is testomony to the tradition of sustainability at Firms Home and the onerous work put in by the Setting 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 pretty big 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 Regularly, the outdated lights have been changed with extra vitality environment friendly LED bulbs together with sensors to make sure that they don’t keep on longer than required.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 influence on our consumption and forgetting to show the lights off in your manner out the door has develop into a factor of the previous. Simply take a look at the outcomes we’ve had to date.
Our electrical energy related carbon dioxide emissions had 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 usually used to see employees 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 fuel, we’ve put in a biomass boiler to energy the heating system by burning wooden pellets, which is extra environment friendly than typical fuel boilers. We additionally ensure to buy our pellets from respected sustainable sources.
Our fuel related carbon dioxide emissions had 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 consists of our perspective in the direction of enterprise journey. Pre-COVID noticed a variety of our employees transfer between places of work, meet with exterior accomplice 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 have to journey for enterprise declined. Pre-COVID, it had decreased by 30%.
Our enterprise journey related carbon dioxide emissions had 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, after all), a whole lot of waste is generated. We now have a bin for all the pieces! 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 remainder is both recycled or incinerated with vitality reclamation.
Our whole 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 an excellent push to take away one-time use plastic from Authorities Estates. Firms Home has made nice progress in the direction of attaining this purpose. We have changed all plastic cutlery and cups with extra sustainable alternate options.
On our technique to internet zero
If the COVID-19 pandemic has proven us something, it is our means to adapt to an ever-changing setting.
New methods of working have been rapidly launched to nice impact, and whereas the rapid impact on Firms Home’s carbon footprint is unsure, it has offered a possibility to take inventory of our least-efficient points.
This can inform our future environmental technique, permitting us to satisfy our Greening Authorities Commitments and proceed our path to internet zero.
Learn extra about our strategy to minimise the negative impacts on our environment.