Practising what we preach
We are clear in our commitment to delivering projects which support and enhance our natural environment, the system that underpins all our infrastructure, services and products. We’re now able to demonstrate that we’re keeping our own house in order, as we’ve been awarded the Level 2 Green Dragon award for environmental management.
The Green Dragon Environmental Management System (EMS) is a light-touch version of 14001. The Green Dragon scheme is generally more appropriate for small organisations with relatively modest environmental impact. It requires that the organisation implements an environmental policy and that it submits to an audit against that policy, with a commitment to undertaking continual improvement.
Our Partners are home-based, so our environmental impact is predominantly in the modes of travel we use for business. Where possible we use the transport hierarchy, prioritising Active Travel (walking and cycling), then public transport, then private transport. For further information on the hierarchy and on low carbon transport, we recommend looking at the 2018 Institute of Welsh Affairs publication “Decarbonising Transport in Wales“.
https://toot.wales/interact/102462211554451847
Why does this matter?
One of the reasons we set up Afallen was to provide a platform within which talented individuals from across Wales could carry out high-level project activity, without having to accredit themselves with the many requirements for tender or project quality assurance that are often required.
The attainment of Level 2 of the Green Dragon EMS now opens up the prospect of Afallen and our Associates being able to successfully bid for a wider range of project activity, and potentially for much larger projects.
We’ll also seek out organisations which have demonstrated a similar commitment to the environment – and ideally to the other values which we hold dear – and try to find ways in which we can procure services or goods from them.
We’d like to help cascade the good practice of EMS as widely as possible. Business activity is an incredibly important component of sustainability, and it’s only when the whole business community is doing its utmost that we will be able to attain genuine sustainability in Wales.
If you like our values, and you’d like to work with superb consultants from across Wales on challenging and interesting projects, please get in touch. Our Associates have huge experience with technical areas ranging from renewable energy and technical research to GIS, and with ‘softer’ topics such as stakeholder engagement, communications and project assessment.
We look forward to hearing from you!