The main areas that we seek to address are the energy and materials we use in our offices, the waste we produce and staff travel.
In a number of offices we monitor energy consumption. However, because a significant proportion of our offices are within serviced buildings which we share with other tenants, it is not always feasible to obtain meaningful and reliable information regarding our own energy consumption. This is particularly the case where heating or cooling systems are shared. However, in the UK, we do monitor the energy consumption in 86% of our offices where we have responsibility for office management.
Since 2005 we have been monitoring electricity and gas consumption across those UK offices which we manage ourselves. This year’s data indicates that we are starting to reduce the level of equivalent CO2 emissions per employee and we are constantly trying to improve our monitoring and measurement of energy data. Reliable energy data from our main operations outside of the UK has, to date, proved difficult to obtain particularly as many of these are in shared buildings. However we are aware that energy saving initiatives are in place.
It is our objective to increase the coverage of waste monitoring which is currently restricted to offices in the UK and Sweden which together represent in the region of 70% of our business. Currently, 78% of our offices in these countries purchase recycled paper, while just 27% are actively participating in recycling schemes.
The geographical spread of offices and projects often requires staff to travel but where practical we actively encourage staff to consider greener alternatives. Extensive use is made of video and tele-conferencing as an alternative, and we encourage the use of public transport, car sharing and the development of office travel plans. Accessibility to public transport is now an important element in our office relocation decisions.
In the UK, where the provision of company cars is more common, we encourage the choice of cars with lower emissions as well as those with hybrid motors. Since 2005 we have collected mileage data relating to the use of company cars in the UK and Scandinavia.
We are keen to engage staff in the green agenda, and feedback from the annual staff survey indicates that they are keen to respond and make a difference. This year we held our first WSP Sustainability Day in the UK which generated significant interest, with staff taking part in a series of activities.