Environment

We recognise that our activities have a local, regional and global environmental impact and we are committed to continuous improvements in sustainability. Based on this conviction, Shared Interest created an Environment Team in 2008, to act as internal sustainability champions and support colleagues’ engagement with these issues.

The guiding principles of our Environment Team, also highlighted in our ‘Green Policy’ (Appendix 10), are:

• To encourage environmental responsibility amongst our colleagues, volunteers, contractors and suppliers. 
• To conduct our operations in a manner which minimises our consumption of natural resources and manages waste through responsible disposal and the reuse and recycling of materials where economically feasible.
• To include environmental considerations in our purchasing and procurement processes.
• To regularly review our Green Policy and keep the team up to date on changes to policy and procedure.

One member of the Environment Team is Certified Carbon Literate having successfully completed Carbon Literacy training in the year.  So far, she has delivered a session titled ‘What is a Carbon Footprint?’ to colleagues and volunteers as well as a ‘Sustainability 101’ discussion, which included the opportunity to discuss some common sustainability terms within our sector.  With the new knowledge gained, she is also exploring the requirements of net zero and what this journey could look like for our organisation.

As members of World Fair Trade Organisation (WFTO), we follow their 10 Principles of Fair Trade, which include the recently updated Principle 10 ‘Climate Action and Protection of the Environment’.  This revision, from ‘Respect for the Environment’ was made to ‘strengthen the original criteria on protecting the environment and give more attention to cutting down CO2 emissions… (and) promoting sustainable production and eliminating waste and plastics.’ and was formally adopted by WFTO in early 2023.  As a member of WFTO, we are working towards Principle 10 ‘reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of their operations and we are currently considering our role in the drive for net zero.

You can read the full Social Accounts document here.