Environmental Report 2011

After many hours spent chasing invoices, looking at spreadsheets and working out emission factors we've finally published our Environmental Report for 2011. I don't know (yet) how to add a document to this blog, so if you'd like a copy sent to you please email me at audrey@castle-climbing.co.uk and I'll be happy to send you a copy. It's important to me that this information is available so that other businesses can learm from our experiences and help reduce their own carbon footprint.

  If you just want a quick summary of the key facts, read on:

- Carbon Footprint for 2011 : 100.17 tonnes CO2e (14.5% reduction from 2010, 27% reduction from when we started reporting in 2008)
- Cafe : we opened our own kitchen to process food grown in our organic garden. In 2011 we were just starting to transition from purchased food to homemade- this is nearing completion in 2012.
- Shop : we continue to increase our range of certified organic cotton clothing and bluesign labelled products. The refurbishment in August/September has made the shop more energy efficient with better lighting and insulation.
- IT : we've redesigned and upgraded network to reduce power consumed onsite.
- Waste : we've significantly reduced our waste to landfill (by 78%). We now send one 240L bin to landfill per week. Not bad for one the country's busiest climbing centres!
- Travel: this is the one area that we've not improved on. Due to the higher number of guest setters travelling to London, we have more carbon emissions than in previous years, but less mileage. Must do better.
- Electricity consumption has gone down quite a bit. We have yet to analyse all of our monitoring data, so we don't yet know what changes are most effective.
- Water consumption has remained constant despite increased demand from our garden because we are using rainwater and greywater to irrigate.
- The garden saw many developments in 2011, most of which are reported by Ida on this blog. Key ones included a greywater filtration system, a wildlife pond and many more plants.
- Our two big events - the annual garden party and xmas party- were very low impact with minimal waste.
- We awarded two Castle eco-grants in 2011 to staff to be able to volunteer their time to environmental charities.
- We continue to offer Bike To Work scheme and eco-days (bonus holidays for sustainable travel) to staff.

We're able to do all this because of the support of our shareholders, our Board of Directors and the continued commitment of all of the staff. Thank you!

Audrey Seguy, Managing Director
audrey@castle-climbing.co.uk

Environmental Report 2010

Each year, we take on the mammoth task of looking at the environmental impact of everything we do - from hosting parties to buying loo roll and everything in between. You can download a copy of our report here. Be warned it's a big piece of work.
If you don't want to go through it all, here are the main points:
- Our carbon footprint has gone down slightly by about 6% to 117.09 tonnes CO2e. This isn't the dramatic decrease we'd hoped for, but we're still laying the groundwork for the big changes to come.
- In 2010 we opened The Castle Shop. This not only has diversified our business and improved the customer experience, but it's also given us a chance to engage with suppliers about sustainability.
- 2010 was also our first full year with the Castle Garden. Highlights include a bountiful summer crop, two beehives, community mini-plots, a huge composter, a swale to filter grey water and lots of digging!
- We've installed electricity monitors on all our circuits so we can see exactly where our electricity is being used.

If you want more- just download the report.

Happy reading,

Audrey

Environmental Report for 2009

Following up on the runaway success of our Environmental Report 2008, the team and I have come up with the sequel... the Environmental Report 2009! You can download it here Annual Environmental Report 2009. To summarise we were directly responsible for 125.07 tonnes of CO2e. That’s not that much better than the previous year (136.79 tonnes CO2e) but that’s because the carbon footprint only tells a small part of the story. So much else has happened in 2009 including major changes to our Cafe supply chain, the start of our garden, our own eco-build (Training Room 3) and lots and lots of research into water, waste, passive heating/ventilation, climbing holds, recyclable paper and so much more.

If you have any questions about this, just send me an email: Audrey@castle-climbing.co.uk

Annual Enviromental Report - 2008

Well if you're looking for some riveting reading this weekend, I can't do better than recommend our Annual Enviromental Report. This covers the period between January and December 2008 and will act as the baseline year for us to measure our improvements from. It took a little while to put together because we've had to do a lot of research about the methodology and we've tried to format it so that it will work consistently with future reports.

The short story is that we were directly responsible for 136.79 tonnes of CO2e. Rubbish. That's nearly 50 return flights to Australia. That would take 137 trees one century to absorb. Most of it is due to the electricity and heating we used. We're working on that.

We're monitoring all of our circuits to find out where this electricity is being used. We're considering ways of running the Cafe using less energy. We're looking at how we can modify the building so that the heating and ventilation can be done without too much power. We're going to change over all of our lighting to low-energy lighting and we'll probably repaint the walls and floor tiles so that we need less light. So that's what's on the cards for 2010.

Audrey

Annual Environmental Report 2008

Powered out...part 1

Our IT superhero, John, has installed a nifty bit of software that helps us keep track of how much power we are wasting by leaving our computers turned on when we’re not using them. We’ve tracked this for the last two weeks without implementing any kind of policy to determine what our baseline is and to see which computers are the most prone to being left idle. The results are in and we’ve clocked up a terrible 719 inactive hours. On average the computers are inactive but left on about half the time. So lots of room for improvement there… I’ll report back in two weeks to see how much we’ve improved!

Enviromental route setting?

To keep with the Green theme the route setting department i.e. Mike A.K.A me has been researching how climbing holds are made and looking into whether we can source our holds from the most sustainable companies out there. But first I had to find out how the holds are made.

Unfortunately for the world the results were not good. Currently these are some the materials that are going into making the pretty plastic shapes we love so much;
Styrene, Methyl Ethyl Ketone Peroxide, Epichlorohydrine, Bisphenol-A ,Toluene diisocyanate-TDI, Hexamethylene diisocyanate-HMDI

If these words mean as much to you as they did to me let me summarise what some of these bad boys can do;

They are Carcinogenic, mutagenic, harmful to skin and eyes, form explosive mixtures in the air, highly flammable, extremely destructive to tissue , affect embryo or foetus, are a reproductive hazard, very toxic by inhalation and may explode when heated! Don’t panic and run for your bio hazard outfit just yet though because all these materials become stable once cured and the finished hold is perfectly safe to handle.

So with this newfound knowledge on the materials involved I emailed all the hold companies we currently purchase holds from and asked them what their stand on the hold making game was and what, if any, environmental policies they had.

From the responses I got and through further research via Greengrip.org it was becoming clear that the technology for making quality environmentally friendly climbing holds just is not out there at the moment.

So what can I do? At this stage we can concentrate on the companies with the strongest written environmental policies and avoid air freight delivery. So our latest purchases have been with Bulgarian based HRT safety whose green policy is extremely strong and make the majority of the holds we have ordered from Polyurethane. We have also ordered from Chesterfield based company Core Climbing.

So where can hold manufacturing go from here? According to sites such as Greengrip the technologies and materials are becoming available but they need to be embraced and tested via the companies that are making 1000’s of holds every week. On the current available materials side companies such as HRT and Holdz are now switching over to a Polyurethane set-up similar to that of the American market. Polyurethane is used as opposed to Polyester resin which is a different form of plastic that uses around a fifth less material to make each hold and this form of the plastic is less toxic in handling and is therefore said to be more environmentally friendly way of producing climbing holds.

From here it’s over to those companies who make the holds to push the technology forward and try and reduce the impact that hold production currently has on the environment.

Audits, Codes and Blogs

Well if I thought that launching the EP was the hard part, I was wrong. Now comes the real nitty gritty of auditing, assessing, reporting and monitoring.

Thankfully most of the really boring stuff is for Audrey to sort out. She is currently working on an Environmental Report for 2008 (including our Carbon Footprint) and getting us Acorn registered, both of which require a lot of paperwork and writing of action plans.

For my part, I have tried to bring some sort of order to the timeline of changes and started this blog with the intention of letting our customers and the wider public know what we're up to: why we started this, where we started and how far we've come. A common worry has been that we'll get too focused on the EP and lose focus on our business: climbing. With so many plans afoot for developing the climbing within the centre, I don't see this as a real concern (though I might need to find some more inspiring climbing magazines for the cafe again - they seem to have been replaced with one called "Rhubarb").

Other changes in progress at the moment are:

• Improving our bike parking facilities


• finding an alternative for disposable ice packs


• subsidies for staff to buy bicycles


• trying to find more vegan/vegetarian alternatives in the cafe


• researching low energy lighting solutions


• monitoring wind power potential


• monitoring the power circuits


• Researching agroforestry potential for the garden

And now the EP launched, I'm off for a year's sabbatical from the Castle but will be watching this space closely for many more exciting and radical changes. It's something I'm really proud to be involved in, as I've come to think in the last 9 months that preventing "runaway global warming" is the single most important thing humanity can do, and in fact has to do now. To paraphrase Leo Murray in Wake Up Freak Out: Those who came before didn't know about this problem and those who come after will be powerless to do anything. It's fallen to us to do something about it. These are exciting times.

Sieta

The Environmental Policy - Issue 1 April 2009

1. Statement of Intent

Climate change is a real problem that is already affecting us. Resources are running out rapidly and the future economic landscape is increasingly uncertain. We must put in place an effective Environmental Management Scheme and radically alter the way we operate to minimise our environmental impact and reduce our dependency on scarce resources.

High Performance Sports Ltd is committed to doing this because we believe that we are collectively responsible for the causes of climate change and that we can, and therefore must, take action. In doing so, we can inspire change in other people and companies to also reduce their impact.

Our aim is to make The Castle Climbing Centre a benchmark for environmental and economic sustainability and to demonstrate that there is a place for sport and commerce in a sustainable future without compromising financial success and high standards.

The purpose of this Environmental Policy statement is to provide structure and direction to our actions in reducing our environmental impact. The challenge is a complex and broad one and cannot be solved by a simple solution.

It is only possible to make the business sustainable by changing our practices. While it is not in our power nor is it appropriate to prescribe or prevent certain behaviours, some aspects of the Policy will be mandatory and become part of performance appraisals, enforced through our Disciplinary Procedures and incorporated in each employee’s terms of work here. In areas outside the scope of our influence we will include systems and processes designed to encourage the reduction of negative environmental impact in the lives of our staff and customers.

This is a position supported by the Board of Directors and the Core Management Team.

2. Scope

The Environmental Policy is mandatory for all staff working at The Castle. It covers all business that takes place on Castle grounds or in connection with The Castle. A breach of the Environmental Policy may lead to Disciplinary Proceedings as per The Castle’s Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures. All staff will be informed of the Environmental Policy and this will be taken as a part of their terms of work at The Castle.

3. Method

A. Environmental Audits

We will carry out environmental audits to assess our environmental impact on an annual basis. These audits will include but are not limited to:
· Inputs – supplies brought into the centre;
· Outputs – waste produced by the centre;
· Energy and Resources – use of electricity, gas and water;
· Processes – the environmental impact of our systems of work with special attention to cleaning and maintenance products and processes;

Although a separate audit may be carried out for the Café, if practical, it can be incorporated into the general centre audit.

One of the purposes of the audit will be to establish our Carbon Footprint as per the methodology recommended by The Carbon Trust (Appendix A).

B. Action Plans

From the findings of the audit we will formulate immediate, 1 year, and 3 year action plans with specific targets. Tasks will be assigned by agreement to staff members and will form part of their general performance appraisal for their work at The Castle.

C. Performance Monitoring and Reporting

Our performance will be communicated to staff and public through the publication of an annual Environmental Report. To achieve our goal of demonstrating the possibilities of sustainability in business we will, in addition, produce monthly Environmental Updates to both customers and staff.

D. Reviewing Policy and Targets

The final piece of our Environmental Management Scheme is a review of our policy and procedures. This will be undertaken annually in conjunction with the publication of the Environmental Report.

4. Targets

Our main purpose is to reduce our environmental impact by reducing the carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions that we are directly and indirectly responsible for. In addition, we want to have a positive influence on the actions of our customers, staff and other businesses to encourage them to reduce their contribution to climate change.

We will consider our Policy a success when we achieve the following:

· Develop and implement an Environmental Management Scheme with external accreditation;
· Become carbon neutral through minimising our emissions and genuinely offsetting what emissions we cannot eliminate;
· Source all of our electricity from renewable resources;
· Become Water Neutral by collecting and recycling water ourselves;
· Regulate the environment within the building (temperature, ventilation and lighting) with the least amount of energy;
· Reduce the environmental impact of transport associated with the business;
· Actively encourage our customers and staff to reduce their own environmental impacts through an awareness campaign;
· Source all of our supplies from companies with high environmental standards;
· Send zero waste to landfill; and
· Eliminate the use of toxic substances in our cleaning and maintenance processes.

We must do this without compromising the financial success of the company and the high standards that we have come to expect.

5. Inputs

A. Purchasing Code

When purchasing supplies, staff are obliged to take the following elements into consideration (in no particular order):
· Our need for the product;
· Suitability for our purposes;
· Cost;
· Materials and processes used in making the product;
· Transportation used to make and ship the product;
· Product packaging;
· Expected life span and end-of-life disposal possibilities; and
· Supplier environmental and ethical record.

B. Supplier Code of Conduct

We will notify our suppliers that we will now be looking at environmental impact when purchasing and that we encourage them to take the following steps: assessing their impact, formulating a policy, reporting on their progress. Those suppliers that achieve this will be our preferred suppliers.

C. Café supplies

In addition to the Purchasing Code, the Café will have additional considerations when purchasing and preparing food. Where possible, the café will use organic, sustainable, local produce. Food will be assembled on site where possible to limit packaging and waste.

D. Utilities

Our first priority will be to minimise the consumption of electricity, gas and water. Secondly we will source these in the most environmentally responsible manner.

6. Outputs

a) Waste Management Plan

Recycling and composting are mandatory for all staff and strongly encouraged for customers. We will provide adequate facilities for both recycling and composting. To keep track of performance we will monitor and report on our performance monthly as part of the Environmental Update.

Our Waste Management Plan will respect the following waste hierarchy:(http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/uk/Our-Services/Resource-efficiency.html)
If we are not able to re-use the items ourselves we will invite outside organisations to re-use our waste unless there is a health and safety issue with the product being re-used.

b) Carbon Dioxide and other Greenhouse Gases

We will identify what emissions we are responsible (directly or indirectly) for and monitor our ‘carbon footprint’. We will accept responsibility for all activities connected with the operation of The Castle including our purchases, electricity and related activities such as climbing trips. Our aim, as stated above, is to be carbon neutral by 2015.

7. Outside Organisations

The Environmental Policy is applicable to all activities that happen in the building. To this extent organisations with activities that take place in the centre must be informed of the Policy and its implications for them. With regards to lessees and licensees we will include an environmental clause in our agreements. Where possible we will seek compliance with the policy by requiring them to engage in an Environmental Management Scheme of their own.