We’re delighted to announce that we’ve been awarded the Investors in the Environment Bronze level accreditation.

The Investors in the Environment (iiE) accreditation demonstrates our commitment to achieving net zero carbon emissions and to minimising our environmental impact. The iiE Bronze level accreditation also helps us with our SME Climate Hub pledge and 10-year Rise Together strategy to halve our carbon emissions by 2030 and to reach net zero emissions by 2050.

The iiE award consists of working toward a set of high-level criteria and targets, followed by an official auditing process. The accreditation report highlighted numerous processes, campaigns and strategies in place that have helped integrate sustainability within the organisation and provided suggestions for the continued development of our Environmental Management Systems.

As part of the award, we appointed two colleagues as Green Champions who created a campaign to reduce our environmental impact and shared tips that could be adopted into the daily life of our team at home and in the office. We also took part in a team litter pick on South Shields beach during a team away day to reduce the amount of waste that affects both the environment and wildlife. Moreover, we conducted a waste audit in the office to monitor the amount of waste that we dispose of and subsequently implemented segregation bins that help recycle and dispose of waste accordingly.

Suzanne McDermott, Infrastructure and Environment Strategic Lead, said: ‘We are delighted to have achieved a bronze level accreditation in Investors in the Environment demonstrating a commitment to minimising our environmental impact which supports one of our key priorities in our Rise Together strategy to tackle our climate crisis.’

We will continue to work towards reducing our environmental impact in 2023.

For more information about the Investors of the Environment, visit their website.