Ceteris is committed to playing its part in helping the environment by implementing simple and low cost measures to improve efficiency and reduce waste.
With responsibility for five serviced office buildings and over 800 tenant employees, we decided to implement an organised, structured and logical approach to Environmental improvements and, due to the scale of the task and the variants in our property portfolio, we firstly turned to Resource Efficient Scotland for help.
This resulted in our Energy Efficiency Pledge;
- Assign Senior Manager Responsibility
- Improve Energy Efficiency with least a 5% reduction in consumption
- Improve Recycling Rates with at least a 5% increase in recycling
- Set up a Green Team
- External Training
- Make Available electric vehicle charging point
Our Green Team was set up in 2015 to ensure best practice was reached across internal departments, tenants and all locations. Our Team features employees from across all departments and locations.
The Green Team are responsible for bringing new ideas for staff and tenant engagement and for monitoring the initiatives already implemented;
- They regularly engage with tenants via email, face-face and telephone discussions highlighting latest initiatives and the reasons for introducing them.
- All paper towels have been removed from toilets and replaced with energy efficient hand dryers.
- Centralised recycling areas introduced to all our buildings to encourage tenants to think carefully about their waste disposal.
- A competition between the buildings has been introduced tracking reductions in recycling and increases in landfill.
- A poster campaign was launched in the common areas using regularly updated energy saving and carbon trust posters.
- Monthly meter readings now taken to monitor usage and highlight any unusual or unexpected patterns.
- Tenants are kept updated of improvements through our quarterly tenant newsletter.
- Regular email updates are sent to Ceteris staff to keep them updated of decreases in energy consumption and landfill rates.
As a result, waste heading to landfill has reduced in each of our 5 multi-tenant serviced offices year-on-year for the six month period Oct 15 – March 16. Electricity usage is also down in each of these locations for the same period.
Further to this activity, the recycling contractor was invited to a Green Team meeting and this gave the opportunity for all the team to discuss relevant issues. This was so successful that it will be rolled out to invite the Tenant Companies to attend an informal presentation.
A lunchtime seminar delivered by Home Energy Scotland and hosted by Ceteris invited tenants to attend an informal presentation although aimed at a personal domestic level the emphasis was on how this can be transferred into the work.
The staff on the Green Team who had attended Resource Efficient Scotland training days were able to impart the benefits and shared ideas gleaned at the seminars. As a result, other staff on the Green Team have attended at least one training day including:
- Green Champion Training
- 6 Essentials to Staff Engagement
- Resource Efficiency Action Plan
For more information please see our Environmental & Energy Policy.