Sustainable suppliers: Commercial Group, Cheltenham
Sustainability, Business
Commercial Group has been on quite a journey to reduce its environmental impact — including cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60%. How did they do it? Last week I went along to their CSR day in Cheltenham to learn more.
The event pack — a bit battered after a bike ride through town
At Polon we make use of IT to be as paperless as possible. So we don’t buy a lot of stationery or office supplies. But when we do, we buy them from Commercial. Not only do we get great service, but we also know we’re buying from people who are making a real effort when it comes to sustainability.
By reducing emissions from their delivery vehicles, cutting back waste and saving energy about the office they’ve achieved a superb 60% reduction in their carbon dioxide emissions in less than three years. Things we particularly like include:
Home-working
Employees who live further than 20 miles from their office base are encouraged to work from home one day a week to cut their commuting footprint. As a virtual company, this one is close to our hearts.
Green Ambassadors programme
This recruits enthusiastic employees to spread the word within the organisation. As we saw with Nokia’s environmental initiative, getting people on board is essential to the success of any sustainability initiative.
Waste reduction
By reducing, re-using and recycling, Commercial have cut the amount of material they send to landfill by 90%.
Commercial has won some pretty impressive praise, like this from Jonathon Porrit:
The Commercial Group continues to demonstrate that profitability and business growth can be achieved through environmentally sound practices and procedures. What’s more, the company is open to sharing best practice with like-minded companies. This collective approach to green issues is a perfect example of how to make a difference at every level.
But perhaps what we like most about Commercial is that they’re relatively new to striving for sustainability. They’ve been in business since 1989 but were converted to the idea of going greener when co-founder Simone Mann saw Al Gore speak in 2006.
Commercial’s experience shows how businesses can transform themselves and generate some good publicity in the process.
If you fancy following in Commercial’s footsteps, Business Link has some good advice.