Its what we do to help the environment

Protecting the environment is very important to us, so much so that we even have an ISO Accreditation (ISO: 14001: 2015) specifically aimed at reducing our overall impact on the environment.

Environmental sustainability

A big part of our environmental policy is based around reducing our carbon footprint. We monitor our use of gas, water and electricity and look for ways to reduce the quantity we use. We do this in a variety of ways, such as energy efficient motion senor lighting in the office and minimising the amount of printing we do.

Safeguarding the environment for future generations

Bees are important to us at UK Medical, we often talk about our office being a ‘hive of activity’ and bees and beehives feature on our internal communications. The sad fact is that bees are endangered, with the UK losing 13 entire species of bee since 1900, with a further 35 considered under threat of extinction (1). As part of our efforts to safeguard our environment for future generations, we are working on an exciting project to install beehives on our premises, along with some bee-friendly wildflowers (much like those in our bee bombs – more on those later…) to help them find the food they need. We are really looking forward to welcoming our new bees and our staff can’t wait to try our very own UK Medical honey! We’ll have more updates on this story as is progresses on our News page and our social media.

We’re extremely proud to say that all of our packaging is made from 100% recycled materials, including the bubble wrap and brown packing paper we use to protect our products when they’re being delivered, which are both fully biodegradable.

When we can, we also re-use boxes for our deliveries. If we’re sent something in a perfectly good box, it wouldn’t be right not to re-use it, so we often (around 30% of all orders) send out deliveries in a box that’s not brand new. If you receive a delivery from us, why not reuse that box again? It’s much more environmentally friendly than using a brand new one.

Environmental education

As a company we build our environmental ethos into our staff training and promote it through our website and at exhibitions. Even our company giveaways are based around our environmental themes, if you see us at an exhibition, come and say hi and check out our bee bombs! These cool little things contain 18 different species of native wildflowers and no gardening skills are required – just throw your bee bomb and wait for the bee-friendly flowers to grow and create a wildflower area to attract bees to your garden.

Our Environmental Policy key aims:

To continually assess our activities to identify areas where our environmental impact can be minimised and to take action to implement this
To minimise waste by the careful and efficient use of material and energy and to maximise recycling, wherever practical
To increase employee awareness of good environmental practice through training - encouraging and empowering employees to adopt an environmentally friendly approach, wherever practical
To include environmental and ethical considerations in investment decisions, where appropriate and consider the environmental costs in resourcing, purchasing, disposal, transport and distribution decisions, wherever possible e.g. by purchasing sustainable products
To develop an environmental action plan(s) to define our priorities for the year and develop solutions to any problems identified
To set company objectives and targets against which our performance can be measured.

1. Friends of the Earth.