I’ve been working at Firms Home for simply over a yr now. And once I was given the chance to work with the atmosphere in our Estates staff, I jumped on the likelihood.
The atmosphere is essential to us
All of Companies House’s strategic goals have one factor in widespread: they think about the atmosphere.
Whether or not it’s delivering a fantastic buyer expertise by way of our good providers, or ensuring the information on our register evokes belief and confidence, we think about the atmosphere in all the things 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 be certain we’re compliant with all environmental laws. This EMS has held the ISO 14001 standard for 17 years, an internationally recognised atmosphere administration customary.
We’ve made nice strides in the direction of assembly our Greening Authorities Commitments (GGC) and we’re properly on our strategy to attaining 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 completed to this point
This good progress is testomony to the tradition of sustainability at Firms Home and the laborious work put in by the Setting Administration Crew and the Environmental Working Group (EWG).
Some nice initiatives have been executed throughout Firms Home contributing to those constructive outcomes:
LED Lighting
In the event you’ve ever been to our headquarters on Crown Means in Cardiff, you’ll know that it’s a fairly large constructing. And with giant buildings come a whole lot of lights! Step by step, the outdated lights have been changed with extra power environment friendly LED bulbs together with sensors to make sure that they don’t keep on longer than required.
These adjustments have had a constructive impression on our consumption and forgetting to show the lights off in your approach out the door has turn out to be 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 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’ll be able to think about what number of kettles it took to maintain our workforce going.
Now we now have ZIP Taps that present ice-cold or boiling water close to instantaneously. These faucets not solely use much less power, but in addition scale 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 power to maintain our Crown Means 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 certain 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 perspective in the direction of enterprise journey. Pre-COVID noticed various our employees transfer between places of work, meet with exterior companion 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 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 Means workplace (earlier than the pandemic, after all), a whole lot of waste is generated. We’ve a bin for all the things! 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, Firms Home solely despatched 1.62 tonnes of waste to landfill. The remaining is both recycled or incinerated with power 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 a fantastic push to take away one-time use plastic from Authorities Estates. Firms Home has made nice progress in the direction of attaining this objective. We have changed all plastic cutlery and cups with extra sustainable options.
On our strategy to web zero
If the COVID-19 pandemic has proven us something, it is our capacity to adapt to an ever-changing atmosphere.
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.
It will inform our future environmental technique, permitting us to satisfy our Greening Authorities Commitments and proceed our path to web zero.
Learn extra about our strategy to minimise the negative impacts on our environment.