Environmental policy

This policy applies to all Company employees, associates, secondees, agency staff and third parties who undertake activity for and on behalf of the Company. It applies to the goods and services we procure, our direct operations and the services we provide to our customers. The Company operates within a suite of interdependent policies and their procedures, which are implemented collectively in order to deliver the objectives of the Environmental Policy.

Purpose

To provide an effective framework for realising Coretemp’s commitment to protecting and where possible enhancing the environment by reducing the Group’s environmental impacts, preventing pollution, mitigating and adapting to climate change and a low carbon future.

Responsibilities

All employees including associates, secondees, agency staff and third parties are responsible for ensuring that this Policy is adhered to. In addition, those employees who procure goods and services should follow Company’s Procurement Policy including the requirement to include social value considerations which include environmental issues. As referenced some activities within the scope of this Policy are covered by additional dedicated policies and procedures to ensure that the objectives of this Policy are delivered.

Coretemp is responsible for providing resources and oversight to implement and maintain an ISO 14001-aligned Environmental Management System (EMS), including agreeing objectives and targets, reviewing performance, and ensuring internal audits and corrective actions are completed.

Policy

The Company is a group of companies that works in partnership with others to enable growth, create jobs and improve the lives of residents and local communities. The Company employees recognises that its activities impact the environment in a number of ways, principally through our use of:

  • Energy in the buildings we occupy, and business travel,

  • information technology hardware (IT), and

  • paper.

    • In recognising this, the Company is committed to protecting the environment and continually improving its environmental performance by:

  • ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation and standards, and the expectations of our customers and other key stakeholders;

  • ensuring our systems and procedures prevent pollution;

  • ensuring our suppliers are able and are encouraged to support our environmental commitments; and

  • implementing and maintaining an Environmental Management System (EMS) aligned to ISO 14001 and working towards achieving and maintaining ISO 14001 enabling continual improvement;

  • ensuring we continually review how we can make improvements to our environmental performance.

    • Specifically we will:

  • reduce energy consumption across our estate through staff awareness and improved controls;

  • reduce business travel miles through better journey planning;

  • reduce paper consumption through staff awareness and increased use of electronic communication and data storage; and

  • rationalise our use of IT hardware and ensure that all waste electrical & electronic equipment is reused or recycled where possible

To support achievement and maintenance of ISO 14001 accreditation, we will establish and keep up to date documented environmental objectives and targets, ensure colleagues are trained and aware of relevant environmental responsibilities, monitor and measure key environmental impacts, undertake periodic internal audits, and complete management reviews so that non-conformities are addressed and continual improvement is evidenced.

In addition there are specific policies that address the individual environmental impacts:

  • from our use of IT hardware, which covers data security and recycling;

  • from our business mileage via an Expenses Policy, which encourages journey planning and car/van sharing our company vehicles;

  • from our suppliers through appropriate auditing of approved suppliers.

To realise our environmental objectives the Company both recognises the need for and is committed to communicating our environmental objectives to our suppliers, employees, customers and wider stakeholders. This is achieved via our procurement processes, and our existing communication channels to employees including the business plan, intranet, Cost Review Group, newsletters, team briefings and the staff induction processes.

This policy and the actions arising from it will be annually reviewed as part of the business planning process which involves the Company’s senior leadership and management teams, with final approval via the Directors.