Environment policy

As a responsible business, the Group is committed to reducing its impact on the environment.

The Group is committed to reducing its impact on the environment, and has a policy which includes detail on:

• minimising energy, water and paper use;
• optimising waste recycling by providing facilities and encouraging people to recycle;
• reducing travel, encouraging people to communicate virtually when practicable; and
• ESOS compliance and adoption of affordable sustainability recommendations
   

Our commitments within the UK, where we are headquartered as a Group, are:

• Recycling: to provide recycling bins for paper, cardboard, glass and batteries and actively encourage employees to reduce waste and recycle whenever possible. In August we launched a stand-alone campaign to further improve and raise awareness on what can and cannot be recycled across our encouraging good practice inside and outside of the workplace.
• Using environmentally responsible materials: to source Forestry Stewardship Council paper for use in all of our printers and recycled black and white toner cartridges.
• Energy efficiency: to use energy-efficient lamping wherever possible, including motion sensor lights, and to encourage everyone to turn off computers and other electrical equipment when not in use. 
• A reduced carbon footprint: to reduce travel by teleconferencing, video calling and use of Skype where possible and to provide bike sheds for our employees in London offices. 
• Waste: to replace paper with electronic media where possible.

In December 2018 we moved to our new UK Group headquarters. This has inspired us to look into how we can become an even more environmentally conscious Group in our daily operation. As such, our new environmentally sustainable headquarters has been awarded a BREEAM rating of ‘Excellent’. Additionally, we’re sourcing bio-degradable food ware, water-based cleaning facilities, default environmental printer settings, access to four waste-streams, introducing a reusable-cup campaign, and promoting cycle-to-work schemes.

As part of our 2018-2019 fundraising initiative, we are supporting environmental organisation Plastic Oceans. Over the course of 2018/19 we have a series of beach and river cleans in the diary. In addition to volunteering and financial support we are helping to raise awareness of their campaign, and reducing the consumption of single-use plastic from our new headquarters in London.