At Ecoprod, our whole business is founded on the idea of bringing environmental sustainability into the washroom – often one of the most resource-intensive areas of a business. All the products we sell are designed to offer real environmental savings to our clients, saving water, cutting power use and reducing their carbon footprints. It’s important that we practice what we preach, so we also do as much as we can to minimise our own carbon footprint and environmental impact.

For the last four years we’ve reported our efforts to reduce our carbon footprint via the Planet Mark scheme. The Planet Mark is an international mark of sustainability for businesses, property developments and products, helping organisations to improve their environmental, economic and social performance. Planet Mark certification requires businesses to measure and report on their efforts to reduce emissions, to engage staff and other stakeholders with an improvement plan, and to take positive efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.

We’re delighted to have been awarded Planet Mark certification for 2018-19, our fourth year in the scheme. To achieve this, we calculated the carbon footprint of our Woking office and fleet and set a target to reduce emissions by 5% annually. This year’s footprint includes emissions from energy use in the building (natural gas and purchased electricity), water, from fuel used by the fleet, from waste disposal and recycling, business travel and from the production of paper used in the offices.

The relative carbon footprint in year ending December 2017 was 4.28 tCO2e per employee, a decrease of 24.3% compared to 2016. Ecoprod’s total carbon footprint was 17.1 tCO2e, a decrease of 24.3% from 2016.

The reduction in Ecoprod’s total carbon footprint is partly due to a decrease in emissions from electricity (down 13%), and landfill waste (down 6%), as well as a significant decrease in fleet and business travel. However, a key part of the Planet Mark scheme is to continually strive for improvement, so over the next year we will be focusing on the following key areas:-

• Regularly monitor electricity consumption and take meter readings for natural gas consumption, as well as investigating the installation of a real-time energy monitoring system

• Considering low carbon vehicle purchase and transport options, including promoting the use of public transport for client meetings and continuing to reduce air travel to the absolute minimum

• Switching to recycled paper for all office uses

• Continue to work towards recycling and waste reduction targets

• Organising annual sustainability workshops for our staff, including carrying out an energy awareness and ‘switch it off’ campaign

• Conduct an energy audit to help identify where most energy is being used as well as potential sources of wastage from equipment, lights and heat loss.