Environmental Management
The company’s approach to environmental management is through building strong relationships between colleagues, customers and suppliers, and communicating the benefits of sustainability.
For example, in New Zealand, sustainability is considered to be of great importance for the hygiene business. As well as launching the Eco-Care range of hygiene products, Initial launched an internal communication campaign “Think Green, Live Green” as part of its support for the World Environment Day. This campaign encouraged employees to take the step from “thinking green to living green” as part of its commitment to sustainability. The communications programme included both the provision of badges and posters for display throughout the business.
The company’s pest control business in the UK continues to evolve its relationship with the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW). It recently participated in the development of a UFAW paper that considers ways of improving control methods used in the UK for the management of rodent infestations. One of the main conclusions in the paper (entitled “Guiding principles in the humane control of rats and mice”) is that the world lacks an ideal method for rodent control. However, UFAW recognised the role that new technologies, such as the RADAR unit from Rentokil, can play in improving the animal welfare aspect of control. The business’s ongoing involvement with UFAW demonstrates that it is constantly looking for new ways of controlling pest infestations that are effective and at the same time as humane as possible. The RADAR unit, which uses carbon dioxide rather than traditional poisons, is just one example of this approach.
Rentokil has also continued its focus on its Authorised Product List (APL), of which, its listing of Alphachloralose (referred to in the Marketplace section) is a significant part. APLs are now in place for every pest control operating company worldwide. The benefits of this approach include ensuring there is control over the compliance aspects of the use of chemicals, as well as harmonisation of products (including working with suppliers to ensure registration of suitable products in different parts of the world). Now the business is moving on to harmonisation of approaches using the APL products, and the authorisation of equipment usage. The APL approach is now being extended to other businesses in
the group.
A significant event in environmental management for the European operations of the group was the requirement to ensure that all chemical products used were registered under the REACH Directive.
For further details see company’s Corporate Responsibility Annual Report.
Reducing Energy Usage
Rentokil Initial is committed to reducing, measuring and publishing its energy usage impacts. Energy is used in powering the company’s textiles and washrooms processing facilities, service vehicle fleet and network of local branches.
Since 2007 the company has steadily improved the quality of collection of energy usage data across the group. Today the total reported emissions data is based upon operations representing almost 100% of the company’s employee base. Extended reporting now includes all fuel used by the company’s worldwide fleet of vehicles. Throughout the group, over 70% of the fuel used in vehicles is diesel, and almost 100% in UK service vehicle fleet.
Performance
In 2009 Rentokil Initial’s total CO2 emissions were 295,574 tonnes compared with 323,330 tonnes in 2008, reported on a total company basis. In 2009 Rentokil Initial decreased its emissions per £m turnover from 134.16 tonnes in 2008 to 116.04 tonnes in 2009 – an improvement of 13.5% year-on-year.
For latest charts relating to energy usage over the last four years, please see Corporate Responsibility Report 2009
CO2 Emissions in our European Textiles Processing Plants
CO2 emissions data has been collated by the company since 2000 for the company’s major European textiles operations, with the data for all European textiles plants being reported since 2006. This focus is due to the textiles laundry plants being the major source of CO2 emissions within the group in terms of property and process based emissions. They are currently responsible for 65% of the company’s CO2 property and process emissions (2008 – 63%) – and just over 40% for all sources of emissions.
Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP)
Since 2008, Rentokil Initial plc has participated in the CDP submission process, which led to our reporting, for the first time, against the Green House Gas Protocol scopes.
See www.cdproject.net for more information.
Reducing Water Usage
Rentokil Initial is committed to reducing, measuring and publishing its water usage impacts. This is particularly relevant to the Initial branded hygiene businesses and Ambius. Water is used in several ways including to wash textiles, clean buildings and feed plants.
Since 2006, the collection of water consumption data has been extended to include all European laundry plants. The introduction of a new plant in Lokeren, Belgium in 2008 helped the company to achieve a 12.5% year-on-year improvement in average water consumption. This continues to be a major focus for the company.
In 2009, the water consumption, based on kilogrammes of laundry washed in all the company’s European processing plants, fell by 5.0% to 12.37 litres (2008 – 13.02 litres)
50% Reduction In Fresh Water Usage
In Initial Washrooms Services in the UK, the introduction of Revolution continuous roller towel processing equipment and PowerTrans dust mat laundry process equipment has been extended from the original pilot in Birmingham to include its other processing plants in Reading and Glasgow.
The business now has a total of 22 Revolution and 45 PowerTrans processing equipment units. This has doubled its total processing capacity with significant benefits. As a result of incorporating state of the art, microprocessor controlled gas burners in new boilers more natural gas derived energy is converted into steam, resulting in a smaller carbon footprint and lower particle emissions, reducing air pollution.
Similarly, within each item of processing equipment, there are far less moving parts than the existing laundry machinery and where drive is required the motors chosen by the business are of much less horsepower.
The net effect of using this equipment is to dramatically reduce the demand for high current supply and to provide a much lower operating demand. Another benefit of the newly installed range of processing equipment is that it delivers a saving in fresh water usage of 50% against the use of conventional laundry machinery.
The business is continually looking for process improvements, and has already achieved a 6% increase in throughput of the Revolution processing machinery.
Reducing Waste
Waste management is an area where previously we have not centrally collated data. Nevertheless, there are many of our businesses with proactive waste management procedures – both for themselves and for their customers. At an individual business level, there were several examples of our businesses taking initiatives that directly related to their operational environments. The extent to which they are recycling their waste depends very much on the nature of their activities – and hence the nature of the waste produced
City Link undertook a review of its waste streams with the objectives of minimising impacts upon the environment and achieving commercially viable waste handling solutions at a time when it was anticipated that the rate of waste generated by City Link would continue to multiply. Its waste streams consist of wood, plastic, cardboard, paper, scrap metal, IT consumables and general waste. Actions taken have included addressing waste reduction in wooden pallets, introducing procedures to reuse, recycle or recover pallets. Similarly, plastic is being recycled with balers introduced throughout the network. The commercial impacts for the business includes reducing the number of waste container empties so providing an efficient, cost effective waste handling and management system, as well as creating revenue streams from the recycling of waste such as plastic and IT consumables.
Similar initiatives are in place in Rentokil Initial Supplies (which manufactures and repairs appliances used by its sister businesses on customer premises). The Supplies business recycles plastic, cardboard and polyethylene. The plastic sanitary bins are granulated and baled by ELSA, exported to China via the Transfrontier shipment of waste regulations and recycled into waste bins or drainage pipework.
Initial Facilities Services (IFS) operates almost exclusively on customer premises, so for this business, the focus is upon supporting its customers in their own waste management. To support them it offers its own waste management software - ecologic - for use by its customers. This is an integrated software programme that involves a waste audit, waste planning, implementation (including employee communication), tracking and reporting. The results are a continuous improvement process that offers customers cost saving in resources used, savings on waste disposal, “duty of care” management and waste management reporting.
As part of its support for customers’ cleaning services, it has begun to replace waste sacks with 100 per cent biodegradable bags to reduce the impact on landfill sites. The initiative, currently under trial with one major customer, has resulted in 350,000 sacks – equating to more than 19 tonnes of plastic – exchanged for eco-friendly bags that break down within a year rather than hundreds of years required for normal plastic.
On a larger scale, Initial Industrial Services, part of Initial Facilities Services, provides its customer, Nissan, with a complete suite of waste management and recycling services as well as a range of cleaning and associated services. The example of an innovative solution developed in partnership with Nissan is given in our case study.
More information can be found in the company’s Corporate Responsibility Annual Report.