What is our aim?

We are committed to good environmental practice and will always seek to minimise any negative environmental impacts arising from our operations. We aim to reduce our environmental impact and contribute to a healthier environment. We want, and need, all our staff to contribute to this objective, so we will ensure we provide the necessary information and facilities for them to do so.

What issues do we face?

All organisations, the FSA included, rightly face increasing expectations on how they manage their environmental impacts. At the FSA we are seeing more and more questions about our environment programme from our staff, in particular about what we are doing to reduce our impact on climate change.

Another key issue is the significant rise in utility costs that we’ve seen over the past few years, as the earth’s resources are becoming scarce. Between 2003/4 and 2006/7, for example, our largest single utility bill, electricity use at our head office in Canary Wharf, increased by more than 100% despite consumption remaining broadly the same.

These two key issues – increasing expectations and rising costs – remain the key drivers for our environment programme.

We’re an office-based organisation with around 90% of our staff working out of our head office, 25 The North Colonnade, in Canary Wharf. So unsurprisingly we’ve identified our key environmental impacts as follows:

Climate Change:

  • Emissions arising from our daily operations, including business travel.

Energy:

  • The energy we use to power our head office.

Resource Use:

  • The materials we use in our offices, particularly paper;
  • The water we use in our head office.

Waste:

  • The waste materials that we produce, dispose of, and recycle.

This year we:

  • implemented energy saving technology as part of the refurbishment of our head office;
  • reduced electricity consumption at our head office by 7%;
  • switched to a 100% renewable (green) electricity tariff for our head office;
  • offset CO2 emissions from all business travel;
  • set up recycling points on all floors of our head office, and increased the percentage of waste we recycle to 67% (8% up on the previous year);
  • reduced paper consumption by 20%;
  • increased staff awareness through Environment Days, film shows, and the activities of our Environment Champions; and
  • were awarded Silver Band in Business in the Community’s Environment Index.


How do we manage our environmental impacts?

We’ve had an environment programme in place at the FSA since 1999. The programme is managed by the FSA Environment Group. This group is made up of key people from the FSA Services Team whose job functions directly impact on the FSA’s environmental performance. In addition the Environment Group includes our key contractors, such as our reprographics, catering, Information Services, and building maintenance contractors.

The Environment Group is responsible for monitoring performance against the annual environmental targets and objectives, which are set by the Chief Operating Officer of the FSA, who is the board member with responsibility for Corporate Responsibility.

As well as the Environment Group we also have a very active Environmental Champions’ Group at the FSA. This is made up of staff volunteers from across the business who are the eyes and ears of the Environment Group across the business.

The chair of the Environment Champions sits on the Environment Group, and the Chair of the Environment Group attends the Environmental Champions meetings.

Diagram 1: How we manage the Environment Programme

 
FSA Chief Operating Officer
    

FSA Environment Group
Arrow
FSA Environment Champions Group

 

Underpinning all of this is our Environmental Management System which details the roles and responsibilities of all those involved in the FSA environment programme.

FSA Environmental Champions

We realise that unless we can engage effectively with our staff we will struggle to encourage environmentally responsible behaviour.

To help us do this, we set up the Environmental Champions’ network at the FSA two years ago. We now have 24 champions, identifiable to all by the name badge on their desk.

We’re particularly proud of our Champions. They are very active, meeting every month to discuss what is happening in their area, and feedback on how well the FSA environment programme is, or is not, working on the ground.

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