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Share Our Journey to Eliminating SUPs on FacebookShare Our Journey to Eliminating SUPs on TwitterShare Our Journey to Eliminating SUPs on LinkedinEmail Our Journey to Eliminating SUPs link
As a council, we are assessing our own operations to gain an understanding of what changes can be made to improve our environmental impact. This page will be continuously updated as we implement these changes throughout our operations. The changes we have made so far are as follows:
Procurement
To improve the sustainability of our procurement processes we have created a sustainable procurement policy to help achieve the goals of our Environment and Climate Strategy and meet the goal of RBWM reaching net zero by 2050. The sustainable procurement policy requires tenders to demonstrate how they will minimise waste in their products/services, through using recycled materials and eliminating SUPs (where possible). It also requests that tenders for contracts will source their energy from renewables/low or zero carbon energy wherever possible.
Leisure Centres
The new Leisure Centre contract for the borough contains a plan to eliminate all single use plastics within two years, unless they are essential for health and safety. There is also a commitment to annual carbon footprint reporting, with a carbon reduction plan in place that demonstrates a commitment to the Council's Corporate Plan goals.
Cleaning
We have examined our cleaning contract for the borough to see if there are any changes that can be made to current cleaning operations to improve their environmental impact. We found that:
Microfibre cloths are being used in place of single use cloths, which reduces the amount of waste produced.
The range of cleaning products being used are from an environmental range (ISO 14001 Accredited), which are of a high concentration and low dosage with highly accurate dosing methods. This means that less packaging is required, less water is used during production, and thus lower transport emissions compared to typical cleaning products, due to the products coming in smaller bottles and requiring fewer deliveries.
A majority of the council owned bathrooms in the borough have hand driers installed instead of providing paper towels, which cut down on the amount of waste produced.
Catering in Schools
Similarly, we have looked at our catering contract for schools, and found that within our current contract:
Our third party suppliers are monitoring their environmental impact and support green initiatives (e.g. reducing packaging, sourcing food products etc).
Efforts have been made to reduce single-use plastics - for example cling film is no longer used and reusable storage is in place.
Menus are created in a way to ensure compliance with the nutritional food standards but also to support initiatives like meat free Mondays etc.
Transportation of meals has been optimised to reduce transport emissions.
Kitchen staff have been trained to support all aspects of the environmental policy.
RBWM Employees
A survey is currently circulating amongst RBWM employees to find out what single use plastics they use during their workday, so that alternatives can be sought out.
Libraries
Library Services within the borough have committed to tackling climate change by doing the following:
Expanding their offering of digital services available, such as online resources (e.g. e-books, e-magazines etc.) and online book groups. Hard copies of magazines and newspapers have been removed in place of digital versions.
Offering a 'Click and Deliver' service which has local drop off and collection points. This reduces the need for residents to travel as far for library services, and thus cuts transport related emissions.
No longer purchasing/using single-use plastic cups and laminated signs.
Offering paper recycling.
Installing motion sensor lights to reduce energy use.
Re-selling withdrawn stock to further extend its life.
Hosting craft sessions using recyclable materials.
Water dispensers have been placed in libraries to encourage use of reusable water bottles.
Balloons have been banned for promotional events.
Use of 'pop up' free-standing promotional signs has been limited to only signs that are used regularly.
It should be noted that Library Services are continuously looking at ways of improving the environmental impact of their operations, and thus this list is likely to be soon updated.
As a council, we are assessing our own operations to gain an understanding of what changes can be made to improve our environmental impact. This page will be continuously updated as we implement these changes throughout our operations. The changes we have made so far are as follows:
Procurement
To improve the sustainability of our procurement processes we have created a sustainable procurement policy to help achieve the goals of our Environment and Climate Strategy and meet the goal of RBWM reaching net zero by 2050. The sustainable procurement policy requires tenders to demonstrate how they will minimise waste in their products/services, through using recycled materials and eliminating SUPs (where possible). It also requests that tenders for contracts will source their energy from renewables/low or zero carbon energy wherever possible.
Leisure Centres
The new Leisure Centre contract for the borough contains a plan to eliminate all single use plastics within two years, unless they are essential for health and safety. There is also a commitment to annual carbon footprint reporting, with a carbon reduction plan in place that demonstrates a commitment to the Council's Corporate Plan goals.
Cleaning
We have examined our cleaning contract for the borough to see if there are any changes that can be made to current cleaning operations to improve their environmental impact. We found that:
Microfibre cloths are being used in place of single use cloths, which reduces the amount of waste produced.
The range of cleaning products being used are from an environmental range (ISO 14001 Accredited), which are of a high concentration and low dosage with highly accurate dosing methods. This means that less packaging is required, less water is used during production, and thus lower transport emissions compared to typical cleaning products, due to the products coming in smaller bottles and requiring fewer deliveries.
A majority of the council owned bathrooms in the borough have hand driers installed instead of providing paper towels, which cut down on the amount of waste produced.
Catering in Schools
Similarly, we have looked at our catering contract for schools, and found that within our current contract:
Our third party suppliers are monitoring their environmental impact and support green initiatives (e.g. reducing packaging, sourcing food products etc).
Efforts have been made to reduce single-use plastics - for example cling film is no longer used and reusable storage is in place.
Menus are created in a way to ensure compliance with the nutritional food standards but also to support initiatives like meat free Mondays etc.
Transportation of meals has been optimised to reduce transport emissions.
Kitchen staff have been trained to support all aspects of the environmental policy.
RBWM Employees
A survey is currently circulating amongst RBWM employees to find out what single use plastics they use during their workday, so that alternatives can be sought out.
Libraries
Library Services within the borough have committed to tackling climate change by doing the following:
Expanding their offering of digital services available, such as online resources (e.g. e-books, e-magazines etc.) and online book groups. Hard copies of magazines and newspapers have been removed in place of digital versions.
Offering a 'Click and Deliver' service which has local drop off and collection points. This reduces the need for residents to travel as far for library services, and thus cuts transport related emissions.
No longer purchasing/using single-use plastic cups and laminated signs.
Offering paper recycling.
Installing motion sensor lights to reduce energy use.
Re-selling withdrawn stock to further extend its life.
Hosting craft sessions using recyclable materials.
Water dispensers have been placed in libraries to encourage use of reusable water bottles.
Balloons have been banned for promotional events.
Use of 'pop up' free-standing promotional signs has been limited to only signs that are used regularly.
It should be noted that Library Services are continuously looking at ways of improving the environmental impact of their operations, and thus this list is likely to be soon updated.
