In May 2015 we signed up to Green Impact - an environmental certification and awards scheme run by the National Union of Students. NUS have been supporting local students’ unions to deliver Green Impact in various locations across the UK, developing local community programmes to widen the reach and impacts of staff and students.
To achieve the award, the Office Coffee Company team worked to share ideas and review working practices, making changes in areas of waste, food & drink, travel, energy, procurement, communications and charitable actions.
Green Impact focuses on providing simple actions (such as switching off lights), supporting people to make behaviour changes in the office, and at home.
In total, we completed 56 actions to achieve the Gold Award.
Student auditors from the University of Gloucestershire calculated the effect of these actions on both carbon reductions and financial savings.
* All printers were set to duplex printing by default saving approx. 2700 kg of carbon and up to £1000 in resource savings per year.
* The overall savings simply from this selection of criteria total financial savings of £3475 on resource and transportation costs as well as an incredible 6558 kg of carbon saved.
* All staff were encouraged to use the recycling facilities on site saving approx. 1021 kg of carbon.
* All staff were encouraged to utilise car sharing, saving £2475 in associated resource costs and approx. 2837 kg of carbon.
They also commented “I was impressed with the work that the company put into creating a sustainable, eco‐friendly environment both in and outside of their office with projects that extend all the way to Africa. I wish all companies take the Office Coffee Company as an example.”
The Office Coffee Company’s support for the rainforest charity, Cool Earth, did not go unnoticed in the audit. Every sale of Puro Coffee triggers a donation. Each year, the Office Coffee Company calculates each customer’s contribution to the fight against deforestation – quantifying both the number of trees they have saved as well as tonnes of CO2 stored. Since 2011, the Office Coffee Company’s customers have now saved more than 116,000 rainforest trees by indulging in over 860,000 cups of sustainably sourced coffee.
In 2015 the Office Coffee Company also supported Fairtrade Fortnight and Cheltenham’s Longest Coffee Morning, in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support Coffee Morning.
To find out more about Green Impact, watch NUS Green Impact Video or visit www.greenergloucestershire.co.uk
