The world has changed significantly since we last met stakeholders in 2019, and as such, we wanted to discuss our new environmental plans to understand whether we’ve missed anything a and gather views on our approach and priorities, and to explore opportunities for ongoing engagement and collaboration.
To confirm the final content of our Environmental Action Plan for the period 2021-2026 and understand how stakeholders’ environmental priorities have changed over 2020- with a specific focus on whether we should continue to prioritise action to eliminate SUPs from our offices and depots- and finally to understand any other arising significant environmental issues to help us develop a focused engagement plan for the next year
You told us that while some SUPs are delivering clear benefits during the pandemic that is anticipated to be relatively short term and you still place a high importance on the issue of reducing consumption of SUPs in our offices and depots
We will prioritise eradicating them from our depots and offices and focus on eliminating relatively simple or ‘quick fix’ items first, such as domestic type materials (plates, cups, cutlery etc) whilst technology advances to replace more specialist items, such as packaging for specialist engineering materials.
We also know we have a role in driving changes in our supply chains but recognise that the rate of change may not always be as fast as desired due to other external factors, such as availability of alternative packaging material types. This is something we will continue to work with our supply chain and utility partners on.
We heard that enhancing life on land to encourage biodiversity had become relatively more important to stakeholders during 2020 compared to previous research but this does not mean that improving air quality has reduced in priority
We will continue to deliver against all fie focus areas in our strategy. We recognise that reducing our air quality impact is intrinsically linked to taking action against climate change by decarbonising our vehicle fleet and thus the high prioritisation of taking action against climate change also reflects prioritisation of improving air quality.
You told us that the big environmental issues for you and your businesses are Biodiversity – linked to increasing awareness of the biodiversity crisis in the UK and greater appreciation of the health and wellbeing benefits that natural environments can provide – Climate change and the need to reduce carbon emissions and the role that green energy, including gas, can play in this transition and the Circular economy, specifically opportunities to reduce waste and material consumption
We will use these as key themes for discussion in future stakeholder engagement sessions, aiming for three to four events per year and se these insights to update our Environmental Strategy and keep it relevant.
During discussions Carbon Literacy was an area you specifically identified as one you thought we should focus our efforts on
In response to this, we will collaborate with our stakeholders from the workshop to co-create a Carbon Literacy training programme to offer to our colleagues across the business and then look to share with our partners and stakeholders as well.