Purpose
The purpose of this environmental policy is to indicate our organisational commitment to addressing environmental issues within Wandsworth BID and through the services we deliver. This document outlines what Wandsworth BID will do to identify our environmental impact, how we will adapt to reduce our impact, and the responsibilities of team members in this area.
Scope
This policy applies to employees and suppliers, both full time and part time. The policy will be shared with suppliers, potential partners and consultants wherever appropriate to indicate our commitment to environmental action.
Action
Wandsworth BID is committed to accelerating a just transition to net zero and reducing the impact on the environment from our operations and service delivery. We will address this through the following areas of work:
Staff engagement
We will promote responsibility for the environment within the organisation and communicate and implement this policy at all levels of our team. We commit to ensuring key members of staff have the time necessary to embed this work into our operations and providing further resource where possible and necessary.
We will support staff wellbeing by considering how we promote positive, action-led messaging about climate breakdown and provide opportunities for them to change the ways they work for Wandsworth BID in line with positive climate behaviours. We will provide space for staff to discuss this issue, including their own concerns and worries about environmental breakdown, through any wider wellbeing programmes in place.
The CEO will seek to:
- Share their expectation of responsibility for the environment to employees and service providers.
- Demonstrate clear commitment to the environment and lead by example, to ensure that the protection of the environment is promoted.
The Wandsworth BID team members will seek to :
- Be familiar with all the environmental requirements relevant to their role and responsibilities, including exploring the carbon footprint/environmental impact of specific areas of work;
- take responsibility for their own impact on the environment while (in the workplace/working from home), sharing ideas with other staff members on how to reduce personal impact.
Operations
As part of our ambitions and values, we will assess the environmental impacts of our operations annually. This work will include:
- Reviewing utilities consumption in office buildings and home working
- Promoting, encouraging and rewarding (where appropriate) green travel choices (e.g. Cycle to Work schemes, utilising public transport)
- Conscious consideration of the amount of travel necessary for our services to go ahead, encouraging green transportation modes and/or providing remote access to events
- Review our waste and educate employees about effective recycling and reducing use of single use plastic where possible
- Communicate with the communities we work with about climate breakdown
- Generally increase communications about the climate crisis, to encourage awareness within our networks and the communities we work with
- Comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulations
Governance
We commit to exploring on an annual basis the impact climate breakdown will have or is having on the communities/people/places we work with.
We will discuss how our values intersect with climate breakdown, how we will be affected by climate breakdown, where there is opportunity to collaborate and support wider climate action and how we can embed climate actions in our strategy, business planning and organisational goals.
Suppliers and procurement
We will encourage suppliers and partners of Wandsworth BID to:
- Share environmental policies or describe planned actions if a formal policy is not in place when entering into any contract or agreement with Wandsworth BID.
- Work with us to reduce the impacts of the goods and services purchased from them wherever possible.
We recognise that although we may not be able to reject suppliers based solely on their sustainability credentials that asking questions raises the profile of this issue, and that we may partly influence behaviours through this action alone. Our engagement with suppliers is designed to identify suppliers with values which align with our own, and we will make public our preference to work with organisations who minimise their environmental impact wherever possible.