Environment Policy
Business in the Community (BITC) is a business-led charity focussed on promoting and supporting
responsible business practice through its member companies and encouraging them to lead by
example.
As such we are committed to our own responsibilities to society and to the environment and to
demonstrate that responsible business is good business in all that we do and to support our staff by our
own environmentally sustainable actions.
The policy will be pursued by prioritising those areas which will have the greatest impact.
External Facing
 Stewardship: Supporting and inspiring businesses to operate sustainably within the environment by
measuring, reporting and improving their behaviours through the Mayday Network, the
environmental categories in our Awards for Excellence and through the CR Index.
Internal Facing
 Sustainable events: Development and application of our sustainable events policy
 Emissions: Reduce energy emissions from premises and from transport (linking to our specific
travel policy)
 Resource-use: Reduce our use of materials including paper and stationery, and minimising the use
of water in our premises;
 Waste management and recycling: Apply the waste hierarchy (reduce, re-use, recycle and
responsibly dispose) in all our activities;
 Supply chain: Apply the sustainable procurement policy to reduce impacts from our supply chain.
We commit ourselves to continually managing, measuring and improving the environmental impact of
our operations, including by the completion of Business in the Community’s benchmark tools.
BITC will promote this policy to all staff through staff induction and our online ‘chatter’ service, and all
employees will be invited to actively support its objectives and develop our best practice further.
This policy is available to all stakeholders online at www bitc.org.uk.
We will seek and act on advice from external organisations and will review our progress and annually
update our environmental policy and targets in accordance with best practice.
Stephen Howard
Chief Executive, Business in the Community
Environmental Policy and Objectives 2012 version 4
Date:
June 2012
Environment Objectives 2012/13
To meet the needs of its Environment Policy, Business in the Community (BITC) has set the
following objectives in each of its key environmental impact areas to enable us to focus on the
activities that have the greatest impact:
Stewardship
To support and inspire 4,000 businesses to operate sustainably within the environment by measuring,
reporting and improving their behaviours through the Mayday Network, the environmental categories in
our Awards for Excellence and through the CR and Environment Indices.
Links with other policies
In support of our wider CSR activities (including sustainable procurement and support for communities)
we have developed sustainable events and procurement policies. Implementing these is a key priority
for 2012/13 and the environmental impact of our events has been targeted as of 1st importance
Green House Gas emissions
BITC will target to reduce energy consumed in its premises by:
 Reducing energy used to heat, cool and light premises through investing in new technologies and
engaging employees through such things as a ‘switch-off’ campaigns and other actions to challenge
behaviour;
 Maintain the reductions in energy used by IT and electrical equipment in premises by continuing to
implement PC energy management
 Making monitoring and measurement of energy usage visible (Shepherdess Walk as 1st priority but
extending where possible)
In every aspect of energy consumption we will continue to encourage staff to consider how their
behaviour impacts energy usage
BITC will reduce emissions from transport by the following actions already in place but of continuing
importance and application:
 Work to produce a more detailed travel policy applicable to BITC work load and staff
3. Material and water use
BITC will improve its measurement and minimise its use of:
 Paper, - by commitment to on-line publications and to limiting the number of documents which are
printed; by recording and reducing print jobs;
 Stationary, by the agreement of approved lists of sustainable products, monitoring orders and use
 Major purchases including IT equipment and furniture, that the purchasing decision consider
the whole life cycle of relevant items including their disposal
 Water, by investing in new technologies and engaging employees on behaviour changes
Environmental Policy and Objectives 2012 version 4
4. Waste management and recycling
BITC will apply the waste hierarchy (reduce, re-use, recycle and responsibly dispose) in all its activities
by:
 Consider life cycles in all purchasing / acquisition decisions
 Improving the measurement of waste levels across all sites
 Reducing the total amount of waste generated
 Increasing the re-use and recycling of items through employee engagement and improved
collection services
5. Communication
 BITC will increase employee involvement in these objectives through employee led ‘Walk the talk’
opportunities
 Continue to report progress on objectives externally through annual completion of Business in the
Community’s benchmarking tools.
Environmental Policy and Objectives 2012 version 4