Carbon Reduction Plan
Our Vision
Let’s empower over one million people to change behaviours andthrive, whilst protecting and enriching the world we live in.
We want to create a sustainable workplace where we seek to protect the environment and reduce our Carbon Footprint. With Environment Ambassadors from each of our office locations, we will work as a team to make a difference!
Why?
A healthy environment is essential for healthy living! Tackling climate change and safeguarding our planet for future generations is more than enough of a motivating factor.
In addition, there are also the following benefits:
- Healthier employees
- Improved recruitment and retention
- Reduced operational costs, meaning more money can be spent on other worthwhile initiatives.
Our Objective
To decrease the carbon footprint of our company by 10% each year between 2021 and 2026, by following our seven guiding principles.
How?
We will follow seven guiding principles to deliver on our environmental objective, commitments and our Carbon Reduction Plan:
1. Ensure all our office locations have, and make use of, recycling facilities.
One of the most important things we can do to support sustainability is to ensure there are recycling facilities within all offices! We need to be providing education on responsible waste disposal through clear signage and designated recycling bins. We should also be looking into the donation of old computer parts and electronics to local and ethical recycling programmes. It’s simple, but will make a big impact!
2. Reduce our waste and re-use items wherever we can. We aim to become as paperless as possible.
We’ve covered recycling, but reducing and reusing is just as important which is why we want to go single use plastic light! We’re aiming to stop the use of disposable products (such as plastic cups and cutlery in offices and at events) and instead replace with reusable alternatives. We know there are some things we use – such as NRT! – which will take a little more planning to ditch fully, but we’re committed to making this happen!
3. Conserve energy by reducing our usage in all office locations.
We will continue to swap out paper in favour of storing and sharing documents digitally! With email, SharePoint and Office 365 there’s not many occasions where we need to use paper - however we appreciate that at times, letters do need to be sent and our clients may request hard copies! Not only will this contribute to our green commitment, but it will also drive better collaboration and communication!
4. Reduce our business miles byincreasing sustainable travel and offering alternatives.
Think turning off lights and switching off computers when not in use… This not only helps to conserve energy resources and reduce our carbon footprint, but it will also save on our collective electricity bills! Where possible we will also strive to use newer, more energy efficient equipment.
5. Educate our staff into how they cantake responsibility and make their own sustainable changes.
With the introduction of our new flexible working guidelines and the increase of online video platforms such as Zoom and Teams, most meetings we once had to travel for can now be done virtually! That being said, we know the value of getting together and maintaining our team ethos, so we still want to have opportunities to meet up and collaborate however on these occasions consider walking, cycling (we pay cycle mileage!), car shares and communal transport!
6. Use suppliers who share our environmental values.
Employee engagement is key to ensuring our sustainability plans are embedded into everything we do, which is why we’ve created the Environmental Ambassadors; a group of passionate employees who will be supporting us to implement these sustainability measures. Our Environmental Ambassadors will continue to communicate top tips, ways to get involved and maybe even a competition or two via our weekly newsletter! In addition, more formal training will also be a valuable tool.
7. Implement initiatives to help offset our carbon footprint.
Remember your office plant budget! Not only does placing plants around the office help to reduce stress, anxiety and uplift the general atmosphere; indoor greenery can also boost oxygen levels and remove harmful pollutants such as carbon dioxide! Win win! We’ll also come up with other initiatives for offsetting our carbon footprint.
Measuring our impact
In an ideal world, we would measure our carbon footprint and plan to reduce this by a set, specific amount. Unfortunately, it’s extremely challenging for us to do this as accurately as we would like to, and coming up with an inaccurate estimate could do more harm than good.
Having said that, there are a variety of online products and specialist businesses that now offer a service that could accurately determine the statistics and data to ensure our Carbon Reduction Plan is thoroughly robust. Our Data Team’s improved ways of working and technologies adopted (AzureData Factory and Power Bi) will open new doors for us in terms of carbon footprint analysis.
In addition, there are a variety of factors which can be measured (such as business miles and energy usage) and their specific carbon impact understood. For these factors we will look to reduce our impact year on year. The current tooling and measurements that we have in place can be found
here.
The ambition for more clear data won’t stop us creating and pushing forward with initiatives that can’t be measured. Whilst in these cases we won’t know the exact impact of our changes, we will at least know we are doing something positive.
Governance
Adhering to our carbon reduction plan is everyone’s responsibility, we empower our staff so that they all understand that and recognise how they can each contribute.
All Thrive Tribe staff undertake mandatory Environmental Awareness training. They also receive an electronic copy of our Tribe Guide handbook, which details our approach to sustainability. We also continually educate our employees through webinars and blogs on our internal communications platform, including Saving the Planet as we Work and Green Online Shopping.
Every Thrive Tribe service and department elects a voluntary Environment Ambassador (EAs). EAs support the implementation of our carbon reduction initiatives at a local level and monitor adherence to our guiding principles and sustainability measures.
EAs are guided in their activity by our People ExperienceLead (PEL). Our PEL chairs a monthly meeting with all EAs to review recent and planned carbon reduction activity, and to develop innovative and impactful initiatives to trial in future. EAs are encouraged to contact our PEL more regularly should they wish to.
Updates
August 2023
2023/24 Actions
Guiding Principles
Actions
1. Promoting Recycling
- Recycle all old mobile devices, in partnership with GreensafeIT.
- Recycling facilities (with signage) are located within all our offices.
- Finalise digital content for our web-apps that promotes recycling and its relationship to the wider determinates of health for our service users.
- Work with our NRT and Medication suppliers to ensure guidance on recycling products is shared with our service users.
- Where possible, minimise the use of single use products across our services – where these are necessary, ensure recyclable options are selected.
2. Going Paperless
- A ‘digital first approach’ which encourages limiting paper use, reinforcing this through our operational teams.
- Annually conduct a thorough audit and review of our services and the associated systems and software used, mapping the patient flow and any related areas of challenge towards paperless working.
- Collaborate with our external software providers to ensure their products meet the needs of our teams and facilitate paperless working.
- Iterate upon existing Thrive Tribe software products with a focus on excellent UI/UX, no staff should want to work offline. Work with the Systems Administrator & Training Officer to run a coordinated programme of in-house software training, ensuring all staff are confident and comfortable with our IT solutions.
Conserving Energy
- Adapting to our post-Covid world by providingstaff with flexible working regimes, reducing time spent in the office andminimising energy usage on-site.
- Review the usage of each office and local Hub, where this falls below agreed levels, staff should be consulted about the necessity of retaining the building.
- Reinforce messaging to staff around the use of energy saving modes on hardware and review the energy efficiency rating of any proposed purchases. As part of our annual Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) introduce a review of the carbon footprint of each device and where possible, introduce more sustainable appliances.
Reducing Mileage
- A travel policy which promotes active travel and offers a new and improved Cycle to Work scheme.
- All our events utilise local caterers and encourage eco-friendly travel.
- Follow our Recruitment Guide and local commitments, where possible bringing local residents in to a Contract Team and therefore minimising commuter miles. Continue to refine and push our new digital and remote services, minimising driving between clinic locations.
Educating Staff
- Work with Creating New Forests to plant a tree for each new recruit, share the information with each new hire during their onboarding.
- All employees have one annual ‘Values Day’. They are encouraged to use this to support sustainability causes.
- Fully support our Environmental Ambassadors, empowering them to engage with their teams and supporting them as appropriate.
- Further develop are Mandatory Training package beyond the Environmental Awareness course already included. Build on recent Environment webinars from (Saving the Planet as we Work and Green Online Shopping), prioritise an environment focused all staff webinar annually.
Supplier Influence
- Always ensure venues for prospective business events have environmental policies in place.
- Work with Sigma (Our chosen NRT supplier) to continue to improve the Environmental Policy, in line with commissioner and community expectations. Begin external, annual Sustainability Audits of our suppliers to assure our business that our partners care about the environment as much as we do.
New Initiatives
- Investigate other carbon offsetting schemes, such as a monthly subscription to Carbon Neutral Britain.
- Determine and procure our preferredSustainability Software, supporting our environment objectives and ensuring data is readily available to us on our carbon footprint and progress.
- Work with our chosen Sustainability Software provider to ensure outcome data populates our Azure Data Warehouse and reporting environment. Determine reporting requirements around Carbon Footprint, Emissions & Sustainability. Work with the Data Team to create PowerBI Dashboards that reflect this.
