Factories, offices and other commercial properties

In addition to providing more pleasant surroundings for you workforce, ‘green’ grounds and premises can help you achieve accreditation such as:

ISO14001

ISO 14001 is an internationally recognised standard which defines the elements required for an Environmental Management System (EMS) to be complete and effective. ISO 14001 operates a planning, implementation, monitoring and review management cycle that facilitates the continual improvement of your environmental performance and the commitments as set out in an Environmental Policy.

ISO 14001 ensures that the EMS is implemented throughout the organisation and that employees, contractors and suppliers know their roles and responsibilities in helping you to maintain and achieve your environmental standards and objectives.

BREEAM

BREEAM is an Environmental Assessment Method and certification scheme pioneered by BRE to enable developers to minimise the environmental impact of buildings. BREEAM works by assessing the performance of buildings in nine key areas. These are:

• Management: Overall management policy, commissioning site management and procedural issues;
• Ecology: Ecological value, plus conservation and enhancement of the site;
• Energy use: Operational energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) issues;
• Health and well-being: Indoor and external issues affecting health and well-being;
• Pollution: Air and water pollution issues;
• Transport: Transport-related CO2 and location-related factors;
• Land use: Greenfield and brownfield site issues;
• Materials: Environmental implication of building materials, including life-cycle impacts;
• Water: Consumption and water efficiency.

There are several different versions of BREEAM Assessment, depending on the type of building:

• Offices
• Homes - known as Eco-Homes
• Industrial units
• Retail units
• Schools
• Prisons

Biodiversity Benchmark

The Biodiversity Benchmark is the first award to recognise continual biodiversity improvement. It’s a management process which enables any organisation which owns or manages land to assess its impact on the natural world, improve its contribution to the environment and demonstrate its commitment to biodiversity.  The Biodiversity Benchmark is flexible and adaptable so it can be applied to any organisation with land, from commercial enterprises and industries, to local authorities, utilities, the NHS, developers, charities, hotels and recreational/tourism facilities.  Even if your organisation does not own land but is responsible for land management, you are likely to be eligible to apply for the Biodiversity Benchmark.

The Biodiversity Benchmark complements existing environmental management systems and is easy to integrate with them. However, it has a single minded focus on the management of land for the benefit of wildlife, people and the participating organisations themselves, in support of the UK Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP).  Biodiversity Benchmark awards are issued for three categories:

• Single site - where a single certificate is issued for a designated site; for example this could be an area of land around a Head Office.
• Multiple sites - where all sites selected by the client organisation are visited and evaluated with individual certificates issued for each site that achieves the Biodiversity Benchmark standard. This could apply to a multiple retailer, in the process of enhancing land around their stores but not all sites are yet up to scratch.
• Whole organisation - this is for an organisation with several sites who wishes to achieve the Biodiversity Benchmark ‘across the board’. Initially a selection of the organisation's sites will be visited and assessed. During subsequent years, surveillance visits will be made to the remainder of the organisation's sites.

LEAF Marque

More information to follow