Environment and Sustainability
Underpinning our activities in Scotland is our aim to identify and reduce our environmental impacts on the local and global environment - by minimising the use of energy, resources, and by reflecting our principles of sustainable development in all our activities.
We are committed to making a difference across all our contracts. Our operation of Scotland’s national driver information and control system (NADICS) is driving down environmental impacts through better management of the throughput of traffic on Scotland’s road network.
In Glasgow, the bus management system that we run is cutting the queuing time of buses at lights – greatly reducing emissions and improving the traffic flow. By making public transport an attractive alternative, Serco is hoping to attract more road users back on to buses, ultimately, reducing the number of cars on the road.
Meanwhile, Serco is at the heart of delivering a sustainable development strategy for the Scottish Government, guiding Scottish businesses towards sustainable consumption and production through business engagement via the Envirowise programme. Since April 2005, Envirowise has identified savings of £1.2 million by working with around 150 companies in Scotland.
Our prison management contract at HMP Kilmarnock is embedding industry best practice into all its environmental control systems. The culture is a hotbed for environmental initiatives, whether this is installing SMART metering to control energy, gas, and water usage, investigating the possibility of converting used cooking oil from the Kitchens to bio-diesel, conducting a feasibility study into the use of green electricity generated by the installation of a wind farm, or establishing composting and vermiculture units to deal with food waste and horticultural by-products (grass cuttings etc.)
At NHS Wishaw, Serco is fully committed to work in partnership with NHS Scotland and NHS Lanarkshire to deliver targets set down in the Carbon Trust NHS Carbon Management programme. Our involvement at NHS Forth Valley will see Serco taking on the financial liability for the carbon emissions trading scheme.
In the commercial sector we are striving to make a difference too. The facilities management contracts we operate are a source of environmental improvement for our customers. We are the energy champion for services we carry out on behalf of the Starwood Group’s two famous Scottish 5 Star Hotels - the Westin Turnberry Resort and the Sheraton Grand Hotel in Edinburgh. Serco’s chief engineer is inspiring initiatives to cut water usage, investigating the feasibility of a biomass boiler system, and training staff on environmental best practice.
We are passionate about treading the lightest possible environmental footprint across our activities in Scotland. To read more about Serco’s environmental pledge, click here, (http://www.serco.com/about/environment/index.asp).