World Environment Day 2024: Our Commitment
Today marks World Environment Day, encouraging worldwide awareness and action to protect our environment. This year’s theme focuses on land restoration, desertification and drought resilience. Did you know that over 2 billion hectares of the world’s land are now degraded, mostly due to unsustainable land management? This campaign calls on governments and multilateral organisations to fulfil their commitments to restore the land on which life depends. Our generation has a critical role to play in the future of the land, hence the slogan “Our Land, Our Future. We are Generation Restoration.”.
Practicing Sustainability
As a Group, we prioritise and safeguard our business’s impact on the environment. Our ESG committee is responsible for developing and implementing sustainable strategies across our business. We’re actively working towards obtaining ISO 14001 certification, an internationally agreed-upon standard for implementing an environmental management system. This will improve our environmental performance and efficiency, demonstrating our commitment to sustainability.
Our committee is conducting a thorough review of the business practices that impact the environment. As part of the committee’s efforts, where we can we have implemented energy-efficient lighting in the offices and are looking to transition to a renewable energy supplier across our entire Group. In addition, company cars are, at minimum, hybrid, and we have partnered with Octopus Energy to implement our EV Car Scheme; we have introduced initiatives such as cycle-to-work and carpooling, which have been embraced by our people. Also, we actively seek to partner exclusively with sustainable suppliers and continually evaluate our printing practices to ensure they are absolutely necessary.
Planting for the future
We also actively support our environment through other campaigns. We’re proud to share that in 2022, we committed to planting 8000 climate-resilient trees with GreenTheUK to help restore UK woodlands, protect biodiversity and combat climate change. In partnership with the Royal Forestry Society, the right species of trees are planted in the right places to give the trees the best chances of survival against the threats of climate change. 4000 trees have already been planted in Northumberland, County Antrim and Berwickshire, with the remaining 4000 to be planted by the end of this year. Through this campaign, we’re supporting local wildlife, helping to sequester carbon and improving each woodland’s resilience to pests, diseases and/or climate change. You can access our case study by clicking here.
By restoring land and productive ecosystems, we can help to secure a nature-positive, net-zero future. Ultimately, we will all contribute to safeguarding a healthy planet and achieving sustainable development. On this World Environment Day, join us in our mission to make a positive impact on the environment and support local communities.
