Web Environmental Policy
Mission
Kerv recognises that it has a responsibility to the environment beyond legal and regulatory requirements. This document demonstrates how we manage our environmental impact and demonstrates our commitment to decrease the environmental impact of our business operations in the regions in which we operate. This Environmental Policy forms part of Kerv’s Environmental Management System which defines our adherence to the ISO 14001 environmental controls.
Purpose
The purpose of this policy is to manage Kerv’s activities to prevent or mitigate harmful effects on natural resources, the ecosystem or nature through continual improvement and reduction of our environmental impact. We will strive to influence others to do the same and increase employee awareness through training.
Scope
This policy applies to all Kerv employees in the UK and India, visitors, or contractors on Kerv premises and all interested parties.
Policy
We will operate an environmental management system (EMS) that will be integrated into our management framework to:
- apply to all activities undertaken by us, including contracted out services;
- attain and maintain external accreditations for all relevant operations to ensure we achieve our environmental compliance objectives;
- set objectives and implement action programmes to minimise the negatively impactful environmental effects and increase the positive effects of our activities;
- continually seek new ways to reduce the environmental impact of our operational activities, prevent pollution and embrace environmental opportunities; and
- comply at a minimum with all relevant environmental legislation.
As part of our environmental policy, we make the following environmental commitments:
- Protect the environment and prevent pollution by controlling emissions to air, discharges to water and operational noise and light emissions that may impact our neighbours
- Reduce consumption and improve efficiency in the use of all our resources
- Reduce waste – Using the principles of reduce, reuse and recycle, improve effective waste management and enhance our reuse and recycling programmes
- Meet our obligations by ensuring that we monitor our legal duties, statutory obligations, internal policies and procedures
- Operate with transparency – Openly gather and publish our environmental strategy and performance, welcoming debate as an opportunity to improve
- Implement change through education – Develop and deliver materials to enhance the knowledge and skills of our staff, our communities and trusted partners, providing sufficient training instruction, information and supervision to improve environmental awareness
- Commit to a NetZero Glidepath – Build and publish a validated approach with a specialist partner to realise NetZero, with an aim to reach NetZero significantly ahead of government targets, ideally by March 2027
- Attain carbon neutral and positive – Partner with high-quality offset schemes to reduce the impact of the emissions that we can’t avoid as soon as possible
- Operate with robust governance by monitoring and aligning with industry best practice compliance approaches
- Assurance partnership – Work with market-leading organisations to gain cross-organisation insight and robust, ongoing assurance that we are doing all we can to improve
- Monitor and improve value chain performance by engaging with partners across our value chain to understand, support and influence their environmental performance
- Take collective action by creating an environment that encourages staff to identify and participate in sustainability initiatives in their personal lives
- Continually work to targets using measurable indicators to assist with our goal of continuously improving our environmental performance.
Environmental Objectives
We will continually set, monitor and work to meet the environmental objectives we set for ourselves. Our current objectives are:
- To reduce our carbon emissions, achieving Net Zero as soon as practically possible, ahead of 2030.
- To minimise waste, recycling as much as possible across our estate, eliminating 90% of waste from landfill.
- To deliver environmental and sustainability training to all staff as part of Kerv’s induction training.
- To reduce our non-renewable energy consumption.
- To continually use the Aspects Register to create Kerv’s ongoing programme of opportunities and priorities for environmental improvement.
Energy and Water
We will use energy and water efficiently in our operations by:
- making every effort to reduce the amount of energy used as much as possible by turning off all equipment and lights when not in use, adjusting heating etc.
- considering the energy consumption and efficiency of new products when purchasing.
Pollution
We will minimise and where possible eliminate the release of any pollutant which may cause damage to health and the environment by using environmentally friendly cleaning materials as much as possible.
Transport
We will reduce the social and environmental impacts of road vehicles on Kerv business by:
- encouraging the use of more sustainable modes of transport for all business journeys;
- reducing the need to travel by encouraging the use of technology and allowing working from home where possible; and
- offering a cycle to work scheme and investigating the introduction of an electric car scheme in the UK
- Encouraging staff to consider the environmental impact of their travel arrangements by including prompts within corporate travel booking processes, monitoring the environmental impact of travel booked for business purposes and including these considerations in our environmental education.
Waste
We will minimise waste by:
- ensuring that the waste generated from our business operations is managed properly including all paper products, toner cartridges and other equipment according to the principles of reduction, re-use, and recycling;
- using only licensed and appropriate organisations to dispose of waste;
- choosing more environmentally friendly and efficient products wherever possible, particularly with regards to recycling;
- using cloud hosting services for storage and processing of data, to minimise use of electronic equipment;
- encouraging our staff to use electronic mediums for storage of data. Where this not possible ensuring that staff are provided with recycled or ecologically friendly paper;
- providing our staff with reusable stainless-steel water bottles and encouraging staff to avoid water wastage; and
- leasing equipment where possible.
Environmental Education
We will raise awareness of our environmental policies, practices and issues by:
- involving staff in the implementation of this policy;
- encouraging customers to use cloud hosting services for storage and processing of data, to minimise use of electronic equipment
- promoting our policies through the company’s wiki site and monthly staff magazine;
- reviewing this policy and any related business issues at bi-weekly Governance meetings.
Processes
Kerv’s Environmental Impact Management Strategy outlines how we will monitor and measure environmental impact.
Responsibility
The Chief Sustainability Officer, supported by the Environmental Management System manager and the Governance Team, are responsible for this policy and its implementation. We commit to providing the relevant resource and to reviewing this policy annually and communicating it within the organisation and to external interested parties.
Legal Responsibilities
The UK government mandates several statuary obligations regarding environmental commitments. This policy therefore actively complies and supports:
External Assurance
We appoint independent external auditors to assess and confirm our compliance with the ISO 14001 standard on an annual basis.
