TSA Insight Magazine Issue 26 - Magazine - Page 25
News
UM head of昀椀ce holds latest Green Day
Colleagues at UM Group’s head office
in London took part in the company’s
latest Green Day.
The morning started with a
presentation by UM administrator
Louisa
Brown
covering
four
areas – recycling in the business,
improvements on energy in the
office, e-waste and how it impacts
the environment and an update on
the flourishing green space at UM’s
Portbury terminal.
Louisa began by giving an overview
of The Separation of Waste (England)
Regulations 2025, which came
into force in March last year. The
legislation requires all organisations
with 10 or more full-time employees
to separate their recycling and food
waste from their general waste.
In addition to encouraging a greater
understanding of how all colleagues
can help with recycling, UM Group
also has an ESG committee to
tackle the issues and challenges
that come with trying to achieve the
Government’s ambition for Net Zero.
Louisa explained how recycling is a
simple but powerful action with widereaching benefits that all colleagues
can contribute to whether at head
office or at terminal sites.
One exciting initiative to reduce energy
usage in the London office is the
recent installation of a zip tap, moving
away from the use of free-standing
water coolers. This has resulted in
an immediate reduction in energy
usage by saving plastic, electricity
and petrol on vehicle delivery. The
initiative will save an average of 2.4
tonnes of CO2 emissions per year
and, as Louisa explained, the saving
is the equivalent of 15 flights between
London City Airport and Belfast City
Airport.
The presentation went on to cover
the topic of e-waste and the impact
each colleague can have by regularly
emptying their email inboxes and
reducing the volume of emails sent,
in particular those with large files.
An average year of emailing daily is
equivalent to driving a petrol car 200
miles.
Louisa finished the presentation by
updating colleagues on the success
of the garden at the company’s
Portbury terminal, showing the
ongoing transformation of the halfacre green space, sharing photos
contrasting the garden’s appearance
in Spring with recent images taken in
Summer.
Thanks to the support of the
Woodland Trust, UM has planted
hundreds of trees and plants
including Spanish Broom, Common
Dogwood, European Mountain Ash,
Common Hawthorn, Sea-buckthorn
and Wild Cowslip flowers.
plot, tended by colleague David
Richards, which includes strawberry
plants, onions, lettuce, tomatoes and
chilli peppers.
Following the morning presentation,
several colleagues visited nearby
Borough Market where there was
an opportunity to stop off at Raya, a
South-East Asian grocery store which
prides itself on sourcing all of the
products it sells with care.
Of particular interest to the team was
the sugar cane, which UM trades, and
which colleagues enjoyed watching
being juiced before trying this
delicious drink. They made a point of
bringing some of the drinks back to
the office for other colleagues to try.
Louisa said: “It was a fun way to end
the morning session. The aim of
the presentation was to celebrate
some of the good things we are
doing to enhance our recycling and
energy usage processes and remind
colleagues that everyone can do
their bit by sticking to some good
habits. We plan to run further Green
Days around our UK sites and at our
London office.”
Meanwhile,
the
Richard
Davis
Memorial Pond, named in memory
of the former Portbury site controller
who died last year and was
responsible for planting the cherry
trees 30 years ago, is also going from
strength to strength, as is a vegetable
I s su e
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