Promega UK Sustainability Group

Stephen Orr | Technical Services Manager and Chair of Sustainability Group 

"As a group we meet regularly through the year and have representatives from most departments. This helps bring both company-wide and customer perspectives to our efforts in reducing our environmental impact. 

Although the group was originally set up to suggest objectives and initiatives that will feed into our environmental management system, this has been developed into a forum for brain-storming all things related to sustainability. It has been pleasing to see ideas from the group being taken up and converted into objectives, but seeing some of those suggestions adopted straight away has been very gratifying. As an example, we have successfully reduced paper towel usage in our toilet facilities by implementing reusable and washable hand towels." 

 

Chris Moffat | Senior Key Account Manager 

I'm based in Scotland, not far from the Cairngorms national park. I love the natural environment, even the wet and windy one here!  Being in Scotland, I am one of the employees most remote from the Promega UK head office in Southampton. 

I welcomed the opportunity to be part of the Promega UK’s employee sustainability group, which I attend via Teams. I try to make contributions from the perspective of how we can be more sustainable when working in the field and there are many existing and planned initiatives at the Promega UK head office to minimise environmental impact. 

Among my favourites is the move towards an electric company car fleet, with solar panels installed in the car park to generate some of our electricity. Furthermore, the way the RIBA award-winning building has been constructed, including low impact heating and cooling has sustainability at the forefront of the design. It is something I believe Promega approaches seriously and sincerely. 

Being part of the employee sustainability group has made me consider the impacts I have and how I can try to mitigate them on an individual level. I try to make small differences in the field such as always carrying my refillable water bottle and coffee cup and trying to avoid over packaged food and other products I buy within my professional duties. I try to use public transport where I can - using the tube in Glasgow rather than driving or taking the train to Newcastle.  Being part of the group makes me take a moment each meeting to assess my activities in the field and the insights and suggestions from colleagues is invaluable in helping me find ways to balance my environmental impact with doing my job efficiently. 

Rob Holmes | Facilities Manager and Management Representative of Environmental Management System (ISO 14001). 

As the management representative for our environmental management system (ISO 14001), I don't attend the regular meetings of the employee group. Being responsible for implementing many of the objectives that involve physical infrastructure as well as managing the objectives process - I felt it was important for the employee group to have wide-ranging and free-flowing discussions without being overly influenced.  Stephen and I communicate regularly regards proposed initiatives and the progress of current ones - and occasionally I get invited to present an update! 

My favourite project so far has been to lead the creation of a Carbon Reduction Plan. This will develop over time to guide our journey to net zero emissions but has brought so many different departments together. Firstly, to understand our impact and now, to plan our route forwards. It's great to see so many colleagues engaged and positive about what we can do.

 

Do you have any sustainability tips for labs, or ideas Promega can look to implement? 

Tell us your success stories or suggest improvements by email to ukfacilities@promega.com.