environment
Ecclesiastical commits to protect the environment
Environmental issues are currently high on everyone’s agenda with climate change and global warming regularly featured in the media. At Ecclesiastical our aim is to help protect the environment though continually improving our environmental performance and reducing pollution.
To improve our approach to environmental matters we have set up a strategy group, chaired by Steve Wood, our Managing Director for UK and Ireland. Our environmental strategy, looks at environmental and sustainability issues, and is based on the ClimateWise principles.
Ecclesiastical was a runner-up in the South West C+ Carbon Positive Footprints Awards.
Ecclesiastical aims to achieve accreditation to the environmental management standard, ISO 14001, by the end of 2008.
We also have an environmental monitoring group (EMG), made up of volunteers from around the business. The group is responsible for championing environmental initiatives and encouraging their colleagues to participate. Their focus has been on reducing energy consumption, recycling, promoting environmentally friendly travel and paper supplies. Find out more about our recent achievements:
- The Carbon Trust, a Government funded charity, has audited our gas and electricity consumption in our Gloucester buildings and highlighted a number of areas where we could improve
- since their report we have saved enough electricity to power 60 average domestic British homes. (Source: The Carbon Trust). We have changed the settings on our heating and cooling plant, improved the lagging on our boilers and are switching the lights on later in the morning
- staff became involved through an energy awareness campaign which promoted simple steps everyone could take to make a big impact. This included turning off pc monitors, photocopiers and printers at the end of the day, switching off lights in meeting rooms and closing windows.
- we’ve switched to green energy suppliers – Ecotricity and Opus Energy - for our Gloucester and London offices. They invest their profits in renewable sources of energy
- we trialled the use of water hippos to save water in some of our toilets and saved 762 litres of water in the first week. We’re now putting water hippos in all the cisterns in our Gloucester buildings.
Recycling
- There are recycling schemes in Gloucester for paper, cardboard, cups, cans, print and toner cartridges, office furniture, batteries, and postage stamps to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill. Since we started paper recycling in 2006 we have reduced the number of industrial sized wheelie bins we use by one a day.
- our London office in Billiter Street won a Gold Award in the City of London’s Clean City Award Scheme. The Award Scheme recognises good practice in recycling and effective waste management.
- Methodist Insurance has stopped using disposable plastic cups and started to use recycled promotional items.
Travel
We promote environment-friendly transport by:
trialling the use of a taxi firm that only uses green hybrid vehicles
setting up a Bicycle User Group to discuss issues affecting cyclists. 45 people joined the Bike to Work Scheme. This enables staff to buy a bicycle and accessories at a discounted price and pay the costs direct from their salary over 12 months.
sponsoring the Park and Ride bus service in Gloucester
we sponsored the reprint of the Gloucester cycle map.
Paper supply and usage
we reduced paper usage by 20% compared to 2006, although we can still make significant improvements.
all printers and photocopiers are set to print double sided as standard which has contributed to the reduction.
our product literature is made from chlorine free pulps from sustainable managed forests.
the paper we are using for our corporate stationery and customer documents is made from 100% wood free pulp and is totally recyclable. It comes from responsibly managed sources and is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
our main lithographic print supplier use environmentally-friendly vegetable-based inks on all material they produce. They use recycled paper and minimise packaging and waste whilst recycling as much as possible. They work to ISO 14001, which is the world’s most recognised Environmental Management System designed to help companies to manage the impact of their activities on environment.
our main digital print supplier is also working toward ISO 14001. At present they use environmentally efficient energy supplies and recycle waste materials. Digital printing is a clean process which emits no chemicals of bi-products.
