Environment

At Advance we recognise and accept our responsibility to reduce the environmental impact caused by our day-to-day operations.

As a result of a sustained campaign to improve our environmental credentials across our business, we achieved ISO 14001 status in 2007 and are committed to ensuring that all activities are carried out in conformance to this standard, and to further environmental standards which we subscribe to. Initiatives undertaken include:

Energy Conservation

We have introduced access control systems to control lighting and other services within a building or floor. The system recognises when the last person has vacated the area and turns off all associated lighting. Likewise the system will recognise the first person entering the area and turns on lighting and other services.

Reduced Travel Time

By analysing the number of journeys made by our operational management teams, total miles covered and purpose of travel we have managed to offset the number of journeys made between offices for internal and customer meetings. In addition our customer service managers are strategically positioned across the UK to ensure minimum travel time and increased efficiency of all site visits. We have signed up with an audio and video conferencing provider to keep face-to-face internal meetings to a minimum – resulting not only in a reduction of our carbon impact, but also saving a lot of unnecessary travel time.

Reduced Carbon Emissions

As a company with a large number of employees and a requirement for high vehicle usage, over 80% of our carbon footprint comes from our fleet of over 120 vehicles. As such we have introduced a policy of purchasing diesel cars and vans only. Our management team now has the option of downsizing their vehicles on renewal, thereby reducing their tax burden whilst lowering carbon emissions, amongst a number of other initiatives.

Recycling

Recycling opportunities have been explored and all paper, printer cartridges, toners and mobile phones are now recycled as standard, with funds secured donated to our nominated charity. In addition all IT equipment is disposed of in the appropriate manner, whether this is through recycling or reuse within the community.

Reduction in Paper Usage

Alongside efforts to recycle paper, we have also introduced a policy to reduce its production in the first place, with an emphasis on better use of IT and electronic data storage in particular. The majority of internal and external meetings are now operated in totality by email and PowerPoint, with reports and action logs controlled via Blackberry. Of course, we recognise that paper cannot be eliminated entirely from the workplace and as such only purchase paper obtained from a sustainable source.  Our stationery, printed material and publications use paper from a sustainable source.  As an organisation we have been using 100% recycled paper for some time however we have now switched to paper from a sustainable source, further reducing the chemical impact on the environment. From a printing perspective we are currently exploring switching communication channels to web only editions.

Please click here for a copy of our environmental policy statement.