Blog & Press
Paper Round wins Green Business Award for Environmental Performance
Paper Round, a leading London recycling company this week won the Green Business award at the Thames Gateway Business Awards. The gala event was held in East London and hosted by BBC Journalist, Louisa Preston and radio presenter David ‘Kid’ Jensen. On announcing the winners, the judges said they had chosen Paper Round because of its thorough approach to improving its environmental performance and for its staff engagement and training.
Paper Round director Bill Swan said that “Paper Round and its staff a lot great effort into maintaining high environmental standards in everything we do. We are proud of our achievements and we genuinely feel that we are “walking the talk” when it comes to being ethical. We are delighted that our hard work has been recognised by this award.”
Paper Round’s award entry was based on internal improvements it had made to be more sustainable. Swan explains that “We have always helped our clients operate sustainably, but in 2008 we decided to look afresh at our own company to ensure that our environmental performance was truly exceptional. We needed to ensure that we were genuinely “walking the talk” and could act as an example of environmental best practice.”
The comprehensive environmental management system (EMS) it set up, helped it achieve impressive results including a 92% recycling rate,100% diversion of waste from landfill, reduced its office paper usage by 18% and its carbon footprint of its office by 21%. It also offset 546 tonnes of CO2 offset at a cost of £4,641, which helped fulfil its customer expectations – when surveyed 90% thought it important that it offset its operations.
According to Swan, “Paper Round set out to create and maintain an exemplary environmental performance not just because we believed that it is the right thing to do but because we wanted to demonstrate to our clients and other SMEs that operating sustainably makes sense both for the environment and for business. Paper Round has managed to maintain an average growth rate of 25% since 2000. The integral role our EMS plays in our operations demonstrates how sustainability can be the way you do business and add real value for clients rather than being just a superficial add-on.”
Paper Round is delighted to win the award but is by no means complacent. With further initiatives planned for 2010, including trial of bio-fuels from waste oil and Smart metering, the company intends to continue its hard work to maintain high environmental standards.
