We are an organisation that practice what we preach – day to day our projects help households to reduce their energy use and in turn their outgoings and carbon emissions.

We do exactly the same, but in an office setting. We monitor what we use and manage our environmental impact responsibly. We improve on our environmental performance year on year by using resources efficiently and curbing the amount of waste we produce.

The framework that helps us to do this is ISO14001, the international standard for Environmental Management.

We  completed our ISO14001 external audit this week, which is assessed externally, and are delighted to announce that we  passed! We have achieved this 5 years running now.

Over the year we’ve reduced our overall carbon footprint by -4%, amounting to nearly  1 tonne – the equivalent to what an average person emits in one month.

We have relocated since our last audit (we are now at Waterway House on Waterway Street), which has had an impact on our consumption – for example, we had a major clear out before we moved resulting in very full recycling bins!  In our new office, we have very little control over the heating  (not ideal, but we are working with the landlord on this) – this explains the spike in paper waste and gas use.

This years ISO14001 stats compared with last year:

Here are our ISO14001 headlines:

• 95% of our suppliers are within the East Midlands
• Agreement with AMC Gardens in the Meadows to donate all composting teabags coffee granules and food waste
• Implemented heating and cooling protocol for the office
• Continuous use of fair trade/organic products
• Continuous use of eco-friendly cleaning products
• Continuous use of 100% recycled paper
• Increased use of the car club scheme

Well done team!