I’ve been working at Corporations Home for simply over a yr now. And once I was given the chance to work with the surroundings in our Estates staff, I jumped on the probability.
The surroundings is vital to us
All of Companies House’s strategic goals have one factor in frequent: they take into account the surroundings.
Whether or not it’s delivering an ideal buyer expertise via our sensible companies, or ensuring the info on our register conjures up belief and confidence, we take into account the surroundings in all the pieces we do.
“However how do you do that?”, I hear you ask.
We use an Atmosphere Administration System (EMS) which permits us to watch all of our actions in order that we are able to be sure that we’re compliant with all environmental laws. This EMS has held the ISO 14001 standard for 17 years, an internationally recognised surroundings administration commonplace.
We’ve made nice strides in direction of assembly our Greening Authorities Commitments (GGC) and we’re effectively on our strategy to reaching the targets set for 2020 to 2025.
Earlier than the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, Corporations 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 performed to this point
This sensible progress is testomony to the tradition of sustainability at Corporations Home and the laborious work put in by the Atmosphere Administration Group and the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Some nice initiatives have been executed throughout Corporations Home contributing to those optimistic outcomes:
LED Lighting
When 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 quite a lot of lights! Step by step, the previous 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 approach out the door has grow to be a factor of the previous. Simply take a look at the outcomes we’ve had to this point.
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 Corporations Home. Earlier than the pandemic, we recurrently 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 additionally 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 previous buildings, it takes quite a 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 be sure that 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 contains our angle in direction of enterprise journey. Pre-COVID noticed various our employees transfer between workplaces, 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 knowledge 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 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 individuals working at our Crown Manner workplace (earlier than the pandemic, after all), quite a lot of waste is generated. We now have a bin for all the pieces! The Environmental Working Group has inspired a tradition of decreasing waste and recycling to nice impact.
The quantity of waste we generate is dropping and within the monetary yr 2019 to 2020, Corporations Home solely despatched 1.62 tonnes of waste to landfill. The remaining 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
Removing of one-use plastic
There was an ideal push to take away one-time use plastic from Authorities Estates. Corporations Home has made nice progress in direction of reaching this purpose. We have changed all plastic cutlery and cups with extra sustainable alternate options.
On our strategy 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 quick impact on Corporations Home’s carbon footprint is unsure, it has offered a possibility to take inventory of our least-efficient features.
It will 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.