Waste and resources

Why this is important to us

Notwithstanding the environmental benefits, reducing waste from our operations and those of our clients makes good business sense. Our clients expect us to be resourceful and current pressures on Government to address resource efficiency provide us with many opportunities to help them cut costs through identifying and eliminating waste within the projects and services we deliver.

Mouchel's approach

The majority of the physical waste Mouchel generates is through the use of company offices and facilities and we continue to increase recycling rates at these locations, identifying further opportunities to eliminate waste streams wherever possible. Typical waste streams include: paper and card, packaging waste, IT consumables, batteries and electrical waste. For all waste streams we maintain a comprehensive Duty of Care compliance log at each office location which ensures that our wastes are disposed of in accordance with the law and that a chain of custody exists for all waste materials.

Our performance

During the year we have put in place the resources to facilitate progress going forward, however we have not yet developed measures for this area and will provide further information in due course.

To see how we are progressing across the full range of indicators please visit the performance section and view our three-year performance summary.

Progress against our commitments

Commitment: Help clients reduce waste from their operations
2010/2012 Objectives	Our progress so far	What’s next?
Develop a company-wide waste strategy, working with Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), to introduce employee training resources around site waste management planning.	We have updated our environmental risk and opportunity assessment tools – within our environmental management system – to provide more detailed guidance to project managers on site waste management planning.	We will introduce new training modules through our health, safety and environmental training competency framework on site waste management planning and the principles of sustainable resource management on projects.
Commitment: Reduce overall waste to landfill from Mouchel offices
2010/2012 Objectives	Our progress so far	What’s next?
Develop and implement minimum reuse/recycling policies for Mouchel offices.	All of our offices have now introduced our Office Environmental Compliance programme which ensures that all waste management options are assessed against the waste hierarchy and comply with the Duty of Care Regulations.	We will appoint regional facilities managers, whose remit will include the development of company-wide ‘office’ recycling policies.
Roll-out intelligent print-copy solutions for all Mouchel offices.	All of our offices now use intelligent print-copy systems that have helped reduce average paper consumption.	Objective complete – we will review further office efficiency measures as part of our sustainability strategy review period in 2012.
Commitment: Ensure products and services are sourced responsibly
2010/2012 Objectives	Our progress so far	What’s next?
Procure an increasing proportion of company-wide electricity from green tariff or low carbon sources.	We began procuring green tariff energy in 2008/9 and we continue to identify new areas of potential supply as they arise around the Group.	We will review our commitment to the purchasing of green tariff energy and will investigate a series of alternative measures for cost effectiveness and credence in terms of chain of custody.
Develop and implement a company-wide sustainable procurement policy and strategy.	We’ve recently appointed a new Head of Procurement and established a Group Procurement function whose priorities during the year included identifying efficiency savings across our supply base.	We will undertake a review of company-wide policy and strategy requirements in this area and will publish our findings in the coming year.