Our environment

We are committed to being environmentally responsible, including through participation in the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (‘ESOS’) and the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting regime (‘SECR’), to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption and increase our energy efficiency, in doing so, we aim to mitigate our impact on climate change.

By calculating our total energy consumption, carrying out energy audits and identifying where energy savings can be made, we can implement greater energy efficiencies across our business.

We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint, and we are currently developing detailed plans and timelines to enable us to achieve ambitious carbon neutral targets.

We believe that increasing our energy efficiency may help (albeit in a relatively small way) mitigate climate change.

The buildings we occupy in both Swindon and London have achieved either a ‘Very Good’ or ‘Excellent’ BREEAM ratings and, compared to the Chartered Institute for Building Services Engineers ‘Typical’ Office stock benchmark, our buildings perform exceptionally well on energy use.

To help calculate our total energy consumption, and in accordance with Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme and the Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting regime, energy audits are conducted and also used to identify where energy savings can be made. Our audits help to identify our gas and electricity usage and the fuel used by our colleagues for business mileage. That data also allows us to identify our greenhouse gas emissions so that we may implement systems and controls to ensure greater energy efficiencies and reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

We encourage sustainable travel practices, including car sharing and the use of public transport.

As well as offering a cycle to work scheme, we have bike racks and electric charging points for those travelling to our Swindon office by hybrid/electric car.

We also recognise the benefits of reduced travel on our carbon footprint. To that end, we fully support agile working, enabling our colleagues to work from home, and removing their need to travel.  We also encourage the use of videoconferencing where in-person meetings (which necessitate travel) are unnecessary.

We strongly encourage waste reduction and recycling across our business and are committed to reducing our waste and increasing the amount of material we recycle. 

Examples of our waste and recycling initiatives include:

• Our colleagues collecting ring-pull ties and belts for upcycling into products that can be resold
• We have a software system in place, whereby colleagues can sell unwanted items, rather than send them to landfill
• Fully supporting initiatives which help to reduce our use of plastic, particularly single use plastics
• Taking steps to reduce our paper waste, including encouraging electronic only filing; double sided printing as standard when we do need to print documents; and, we have introduced a secure client site enabling our advisers and clients to scan and upload documents with no/reduced paper waste
• Installing recycling bins throughout our offices, enabling our colleagues to recycle all recyclable material (including glass, paper, cardboard and plastic waste).

Our design decisions for our Swindon offices’ fit-out and refurbishments were directly related to environmental sustainability, including our efforts to promote the conservation of materials by reusing, where possible, existing infrastructure and fittings to ensure minimal wastage.