Earth Day is celebrated internationally on April 22. It is a day to educate people about the issues affecting the planet and to raise awareness for and celebrate the efforts in place to protect the environment.
Every year Earth Day has a theme, this year (2022) that theme is ‘Invest In Our Planet’, and the focus is on how businesses can show responsibility and leadership in preventing climate change.
Metric has instigated a number of changes over the last 18 months that help to reduce our environmental impact, and has plans for future changes that will help reduce this even further.
Many of these changes are simple and could apply to any business.
To help tackle single use plastics, Metric no longer provides paper or plastic cups for drinks. In fact where we used to have tea and coffee machines that used plastic pouches containing the drink powder, these machines have been replaced with kettles and catering packs of tea and coffee, and the introduction of segregated waste bins. By removing the machines we have also removed around 19’000 plastic packets a year from our waste that would typically go to landfill.
More technical solutions include changes to the payroll and HR systems, which have become electronic, removing the need for printing paper payslips and holiday booking forms etc, with staff accessing these via a mobile app or computer.
It may not be practical to implement some changes overnight and for these a longer term approach is required. Changes to the lighting are a good example of this with old strip lighting being replaced over time with newer, energy efficient LED Lighting. Over 25% of our office space is now using LED Lighting, and we will continue to update and replace lighting as older units are replaced.
Another improvement on energy usage has seen us fit timer units onto air handlers used in the building. This change in particular, has seen a 22% overall drop in energy consumption.
With the introduction of EV Chargers to the Metric offering, we have of course started to move across to using electric vehicles for staff, and will continue to pursue a balanced approach to replacing fleet vehicles based on usage purpose, practicality, cost and fuel efficiency as we move forward. We currently have 7 EV’s and have also invested in providing EV chargers in the office carpark. The current capacity for 9 EVs can be expanded as more staff become EV owners.
We have also made changes to suppliers that can provide a more environmentally aware service, and this has resulted in us using a new Waste handling service. Our supplier is now providing better reporting on waste recycling and energy recovery, and with an overall reduction in waste production, we have also seen an overall increase in our recycled waste.
Finally, Metric has reported previously on a scheme that would plant a tree based on new units sold. We are pleased to report that to the end of 2021, our clients have so far been responsible for 1495 new trees being planted. This equates to the future storage of an estimated 448.5 tonnes of CO2.
Find out more about the Plant a tree scheme here >>>
Metric is ISO14001:2004 (Environmental Management Systems) accredited and continues to review and update our activities, with a view to reducing our environmental impact.
