Environmental Policy

I believe that we all have a responsibility to minimise the negative impact that our lifestyles have on the environment in terms of our use of non-renewable energy and the waste we produce, and this includes my business activities.

As a home-based service business, it is difficult to separate my use of energy, in particular, from that of my household, and many of the measures described below are part of our normal  household practice.

Use of energy

As a home- and technology-based business, energy use is probably the source of my biggest environmental impact, but I endeavour to use non-renewable energy responsibly. A legacy metering system means that we cannot change to a green supplier, but we intend to address this when the house is next rewired.

• Some of the energy in our house comes from solar power.
• We are insulating our loft with sheep’s wool, and will be using insulating paint as we redecorate the house.
• All the lighting in our house uses energy-saving light bulbs, and most of our external lighting is solar powered. We switch off our lights when we do not need them.
• I ‘hibernate’ my computer when I am away from my desk for short periods, and switch off printers, screens and computers when not in use.
• I monitor overall energy use in the house monthly and keep records so that I can measure the impact of any changes we make in our behaviour.

Transport

The vast majority of my work is home based, and I keep the need for travel to the absolute minimum. Most of my work is on screen and internet based so I do not need to transport documents around the world, and my rare trips to the post office are generally made on foot, by bicycle, or en route to somewhere else.

Where I do need to travel and cannot do so by public transport (as is often the case in my rural situation), I use a car that is efficient and well maintained and drive in such a way as to conserve fuel. Wherever practicable, I share a car with local people making the same journey.

Use of materials

I consume very few materials in the normal running of my business. The main ones I use are listed below, along with the measures I am taking to minimise their use and deal with waste.

More generally, we use only biodegradable cleaning products that do not contain phosphates and petroleum derivatives or other environment- or human-unfriendly ingredients. We are careful with water. Oh, and we have more re-usable shopping bags than you could shake a stick at.

Paper

I work on screen and generally have no need to print out documents. Where I do need to print I use recycled paper for my own private use, and on the very rare occasions when I need to use quality paper for a customer I use FSC-accredited paper. I print on both sides of the paper and use any other waste as scrap for day-to-day notes.

Recycling

I put my waste paper (after re-use as described above) into our council’s kerbside recycling scheme. I shred confidential documents and put them in my compost.

Ink

I refill my ink cartridges where facilities are available locally.

Recycling

I will send my ink cartridges for recycling if they cannot be refilled.

Other ‘consumables’

Tea and coffee are Fair Trade, or equivalent. We compost tea leaves and coffee grounds.

The salad in my lunchtime sandwiches is usually home grown (organically)!

Review

I will review this policy periodically and will update it if I make significant changes to the way I conduct my business.

Sue Browning                                                                                                     V1.1                                     1st July 2009