It’s Quite Easy Being Green
It is true, environmentalism is here to stay. Everywhere we go we hear the mantra ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’. It is the right thing to do. At Burlodge we can find eco-friendly designs and implement eco friendly operations that can coexist with business growth. It is our time, high time, the right time for Burlodge to go green.
Burlodge is extremely pleased to have developed a Corporate Green Vision. It has taken over a year to plan and develop and ensure that we can meet our goals. We now have a Company Wide Policy called B-Green. In this company wide policy, Burlodge sets two main strategic priorities in place – first to improve its offices across the globe to become environmentally conscious and second to improve its manufacturing practices to
reduce our overall carbon footprint and improve sustainability.
Environmental issues are addressed in the policies and strategies of the Burlodge organization and highlighted in the statements enclosed under the ISO 9001:2008 Quality System Certification which the Company maintains.
The company adopted a new initiative in 2008 called B-Green. In this company-wide policy, Burlodge sets two main strategic priorities in place – first to improve its offices across the globe to become environmentally conscious and second to improve its manufacturing practices to reduce our overall carbon footprint and improve sustainability.
With our B-Green Office Strategy, Burlodge recognizes the importance of conserving energy usage and minimizing the consumption of natural resources with the aim of reducing the potential for global climate change. We are therefore committed to taking steps in all our offices to minimize the consumption of natural
resources and energy when economically practical. The practice of running a service oriented business can be paper intensive. The production and disposal of paper consumes an extraordinary amount of energy and generates significant quantities of green house gas emissions. The life cycle of a ton of paper, from production to disposal in a landfill, results in the generation of about 11 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)/green house gas emissions. Consequently, as part of our policy, we will continue to take simple and effective “best management” practice to improve our office paper management as is economically feasible.
Our operations also consume a significant quantity of energy resources. Energy consumption can account for more than 50% of green house gas emissions in the communities were our offices reside. We are therefore committed to improving our energy efficiency by taking simple steps such as turning off computers not in use to retrofitting our light fixtures to use energy efficient bulbs.
Transportation is also a large source of green house gas emissions. The companies will continue to encourage employees to use public transportation where available. In addition, as our company vehicles come to the end of their leases we will renew leases with energy efficient and environmentally friendly
vehicles.
Each Group Office will create a B-Green Office Committee who will be responsible for the implementation of the B-Green Office Policy. However, characteristics of the planned activities will require support of Managing Director and other office staff and so while the B-Green Office Committee hold responsibility of guiding and monitoring, all staff ultimately are accountable for carrying through with the required policy steps and procedures.
The B-Green Office Committee for each Group Country will leverage on a number of systems for continuous and regular monitoring. These will be developed by each country and are country specific. Implementation of the whole Green Office Policy, as well as implementation of most of the activities will be evaluated every 6 months (if not set more frequently by each Country). Reporting will be provided to the Senior Management Team by each of the Country MD’s as the agenda calls for this reporting.
The objectives of the ‘Green Office Initiative’ are:
– To increase awareness of the staff on the benefits and needs for ‘greening’ our performance;
– To communicate regularly (once every six months) results of our ‘green’ performance and provide an update on the ‘greening’ practices in the office;
– To establish clear office management for ‘greening actions’;
– To increase reduction and conservation of resources consumed(mainly of paper, energy, water);
– To maintain and improve current recycling system(s);
– To identify and apply ‘green procurement’ where possible;
– To create and utilize a monitoring and evaluation system; and
– To help improve the management of the hard copies of publications produced and received, so as to reduce paper wastage and free up shelving and storage space; and
– To identify and reduce Burlodge’s ‘carbon footprint’
With respect to our B-Green initiative at the Production Facility in Italy, the productive arm of the Burlodge organization is also in the process of qualifying for the ISO 14001:2004 environmental management Certification.
Burlodge strives to identify the environmental aspects of its products throughout their life cycle and to balance them against other factors, such as the intended use, performance, health and safety, cost, quality and regulatory requirements. The process of integrating environmental aspects into product design and development is a continuous effort, triggered also by the demand of Norms and Regulations which are deployed in the destination markets or are in the pre release stage.
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