The sustainability vision at Pelican is to ensure we achieve harmony in meeting our needs, without compromising the environmental needs of our future generations. Specifically, we aim to preserve natural resources wherever possible to help minimise the impact on our planet, whilst making informed choices in purchasing sustainable goods and services
We are committed to removing 100% of single use plastic from our offices. In 2017 we removed all plastic cups from our water machines and provided every team member a reusable Health and Wellbeing water bottle. In 2018, we took this one step further by removing all plastic from our hot drinks machines and giving everyone a Pelican travel mug made from bamboo fibre waste material. In doing this, we save 15,000 plastic cups being thrown away every single month! We also ensure any single use plates and cutlery used throughout the business are paper or bio-degradable #NoExcuseForSingleUse
Although we all know the importance of recycling, the consequences of getting it wrong can quite easily be forgotten during our busy every day lives. Every floor of our building has a recycling station giving team members the option to recycle paper, cardboard, plastic and cans. Every station around our business has specially designed posters highlighting some interesting and sometimes shocking recycling-based facts.
Every year, we recycle roughly 15 tons of paper, 15,000 cans and 7,000 plastic bottles but we don’t stop there! We also ensure that materials are sourced responsibly, including plain paper which is FCS certified, meaning it is sourced from well managed forests and includes recycled materials. We also buy toner cartridges which have be already used and refilled in our printers.
We take ownership of reducing avoidable CO2 emissions. Every team member at Pelican has access to a dedicated car-share portal and is encouraged to share journeys to and from work. Our team members benefit from the savings available through the government’s cycle2work scheme. Pelican aims to encourage our people to cycle to work, thereby increasing their physical and mental wellbeing whilst also reducing environmental pollution.
Our field-based staff are all recruited within strict postcode and geographical parameters. When visiting our 2.5m customers in the South West their routes are placed carefully by the office team to ensure carbon emissions are kept to an absolute minimum.
We are always looking for new ways to reduce our carbon footprint and a recent restructure of the way our meter reading team operate has seen a saving of 76,800 miles, equivalent to roughly 31 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
We started our journey to reduce the amount of paper we were using by changing people’s attitudes in the way we use paper. We actively encourage the avoidance of printing with posters across the business asking “is this really necessary”? When printing is required, all of our printers are automatically set to print double sided.
One of the initiatives we’re most proud of include moving towards cloud-based storage (rather than filing cabinets). All documents produced within our business can now be shared with colleagues at the click of a button. Our clear desk policy has been in force for some time now to support this goal.
We utilise technology wherever possible. Our training workbooks are now all on-line, reports are shared over intranet dashboards, our learning portal provides a library of resources electronically and the applications we use help us communicate with our people.
We encourage our customers to not use paper too. All of our 2.5 million customers are asked to take advantage of e-billing, rather than receiving a paper bill.
At Pelican we always strive to have a positive impact on the sustainability of our environment and run a number of energy saving programs to reduce our carbon footprint. One key programme was the introduction of PIR sensors to switch off our lights during periods of non-activity. Before these sensors were fitted, our office lights stayed on an average of 14 hours a day. The introduction of our PIR sensors have reduced this to 11 hours saving roughly 18,000kwh every single year. This is roughly the same as brewing 214,000 cups of coffee!
Water saving has also been considered with the switch to a new waterless urinal, saving an average of 200,000 litres of water each year! That’s enough water for 5,516 showers, 21,867 toilet flushes or 346,523 pints of beer!
Every year that passes, humans exhaust a year’s supply of natural resources in less time than the previous year (currently standing at around eight months)! This is placing increasing demand on the world’s natural resources.
At Pelican we look beyond quality and cost when sourcing suppliers. We take sustainability criteria into account when making purchasing decisions and want to be confident that our suppliers are sourcing their raw materials in a responsible, environmentally friendly way.
Our suppliers are asked to demonstrate how they ensure their products and services they provide us with are not having a negative impact on people or the planet.
In addition to considering environmental issues, we also ask the question “have the highest levels of ethics been demonstrated within the supply chain”? This includes ascertaining if suppliers’ employees have been treated fairly and commit to having a work environment that is free from human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour.