Case study - Saving carbon and saving cost
Sarah Long, in the London Facilities team, was keen to become more involved with the environmental efforts of the firm.
Sarah was asked to look at ways we could improve our recycling scheme and decrease our landfill waste. Initially she arranged a waste audit on the building and found that, despite an ongoing recycling scheme, 64% of the waste disposed of in under desk bins could be recycled.
Sarah was in contact with InHolborn who had recently initiated a new local recycling scheme for members. The offer was of a free recycling service and Sarah wanted to investigate further to understand not only the improvements that could be made on waste disposal but also in terms of cost saving to the firm.
A trial period with one of the legal teams in the building was arranged and Sarah set up the new bins, awareness posters and desktop recycling units in their area. Sarah gained their feedback and was able to make adjustments to the scheme before holding an open day to inform staff about the new scheme and recycling in general. This was very well received and led to the roll out of the scheme building wide.
InHolborn are now collecting our recycling on a daily basis in an electric vehicle. The waste audit will be repeated in 2009 and the expectation is that our landfill waste will be heavily reduced and carbon savings due to improved recycling rates will be maximised.
