Investing in our planet

We believe in 'doing the right thing', and that extends to doing the right thing by our planet. This page highlights just some of the initiatives Barnett Waddingham has been undertaking across our nine UK offices to reduce our impact on the environment.

Our people have used their annual volunteering days to support and enhance the environment around their local offices and homes, improving green spaces for our communities. We've helped create new gardening areas, planted wildflower seeds in nature reserves, aided in establishing a new tree nursery, and worked alongside wardens at an ecology park to carry out vital management of different habitats.

Local green initiatives

Even our office Christmas trees were obtained through our partnership with Tree2Me, which saw 50 trees planted and contributed to the Project Eden Reforestation Project in Madagascar, offsetting 2 tonnes of C02e.

Carbon offsetting

SUSTAINABILITY HUB

Our employee benefits platform has environmental benefits built in, tying green incentives to the benefits our people are already enjoying. Our people have been using this to contribute towards mangrove tree planting, ocean plastic removal and coral reef restoration projects around the world, with a tracker showing their positive impact on the planet.

Sustainable benefits

Cycle to work

Click to find out more

We support an extensive cycle to work scheme across all of our UK offices, promoting healthier journeys and reducing the carbon footprint of our colleagues.

Cycle to work

Our ‘Keen to be Green’ programme sets out guidelines for purchasing items such as furniture or stationery, evaluating their green credentials. We also partner with like-minded businesses - when approaching new suppliers, we check their sustainability and environmental policies as part of the initial discussions.

Green procurement

Click to find out more

We are in contractual negotiations to include leasing of Electric Vehicles (EV) as part of our benefits package. There are EV charging ports available at four of our offices – Birmingham, Bristol, Cheltenham and Guildford – and more are being planned in the future to encourage use of EV and hybrid vehicles.

EV charge points

Click to find out more

Recycling at BW

Click to find out more

98% of our overall waste is recyclable and we endeavour to improve this further. This includes all paper and cardboard, food packing and wrapping, mixed recycling, plastics, batteries and toners. Across our Birmingham, Amersham and Guildford offices alone, we recycled over four tonnes of waste material in 2022.

Recycling

Where possible we follow the ‘Waste Hierarchy’ - waste prevention, as the preferred option, is followed by reuse, recycling, recovery, and finally safe disposal. We see this process come to fruition, for example, when we donate used business laptops to local charities and schools.

Reducing general waste

Click to find out more

Our offices are equipped with movement sensors to control lighting levels, and we're replacing exisiting fluorescent tube lights with more energy efficient LED panels. In addition, we have the maximum number of solar panels installed at our Amersham and Birmingham offices.

Office energy conservation

Click to find out more

Although we have various schemes in place already, we are constantly evaluating our efforts, and setting new goals for the future. As documented in our Net Zero Investment Consultants Initiative (NZICI) report, we are aiming to be net zero across Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions by 2025.

The future

We know the journey towards sustainability is not a short one.

Our coffee is ethically procured through the Office Coffee Company, contributing to the protection of at-risk rainforest reserves around the world. In 2022, this partnership helped us offset 1.8 tonnes of C02e.

Whilst we are working hard to reduce our carbon footprint, we still are responsible for over 1000 tonnes of CO2e each year, including the commuting emissions of our staff. In line with our Net Zero pledge, we offset this amount through the planting of willow trees via our offset partner, My Carbon Plan.

Our office initiatives

Across 10 days, participants were set quick challenges designed to improve their impact on the environment. This involved everything from checking the sustainability of the fish they buy, to scrutinising their renewable energy supplier to see if they really are one of the good guys. The challenge highlighted the small changes everyone can make to be more eco-friendly - an approach BW has already embraced in our other sustainability efforts. Find out more about Couch to Carbon Zero

For Earth Day 2023, we encouraged our people to take part in a 'Sustainability Sprint', in partnership with Couch to Carbon Zero.

SUSTAINABILITY HUB

here.

Find out more