Guest blog by Rebecca Garner, UK&E Head of ESG
Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental challenges we currently face, with millions of tonnes of plastic produced every year, and only a fraction of it recycled.
At Serco, we put social value at the heart of everything we do. This means we are committed to addressing climate change through positive environmental action, such as achieving net zero across all our carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest.
That’s also why we have supported World Environment Day every year since 2010. It highlights to our colleagues the importance of our environmental responsibilities and reminds us all to be proactive in encouraging behaviour change, such as finding ways to beat plastic pollution.
At Serco we have an active network of Green Ambassadors who lead on local environmental initiatives across our operational contracts.
Here are just some of our innovative and effective plastic-pollution-beating initiatives carried out by our green ambassadors across Serco.
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Single use is out. Well ahead of the ban on single use catering items in 2024, our proactive Green Ambassadors led the change to introduce alternatives to single use plastics. On many of our contracts we have introduced environmentally friendly/biodegradable/compostable hot drink cups and removed single use plastic cups from water coolers, encouraging colleagues to use their own water bottles. On Northlink Ferries the use of single use plastic bottles has been eliminated.
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Communication is key. With our clients Hart, Basingstoke and Deane Waste Services and University Hospital Southampton we developed communications strategies to increase recycling across the communities and hospitals that we work in.
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Back to basics. Across all our operations, we segregate waste to ensure we are recycling the most we can, capturing plastic for recycling and food waste for composting.
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Innovative reuses for plastic that support community benefits. We partner with the Crisp Packet Project to collect crisp packets, and through our prison industries convert these into survival blankets and winter survival kits that are then donated to homeless people living on the streets.
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Sometimes it’s the (really) small things. At RAF Coningsby our engineers are using reusable lint-free cotton bags to store removed small components e.g. nuts and bolts instead of plastic bags and we’re investigating the use of lint free cotton to prevent dirt ingress to non-fluid carrying pipework and electrical connectors in lieu of polythene bags or sheets.
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Refill rather than replace. On multiple contracts, including James Cook University Hospital we have explored the use of refills for soap bottle dispensers, to reduce the use of plastic. In our own cleaning operations, we work with our suppliers of cleaning products to use concentrated products and dosers, reducing the plastic packaging used and where possible returning the packaging to our supplier for reuse or recycling.
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Switching-out. On our hospital contracts, efforts have been made to replace plastic food bags and containers with reusable, recyclable and biodegradable options in our catering departments, not just for serving food to our customers and patients, but also for transporting and storing food around the hospital.
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Innovative solutions are out there. Working with Brakes, we have introduced new milk cartons which are fully recyclable. They’re made out of card and the caps are made from sugar cane, to replace all of the plastic milk bottles across our hospital contracts.
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Invest for the future. At the International Fire Training Centre, drinks vending machines have been replaced with boilers and plastic cups have been replaced with reusable cups throughout the site.
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Working with the supply chain. Our PPE supplier for our environmental services operations have increased the amount of recycled plastic in the work uniforms our colleagues wear, turning plastic bottles into safety boots. When the uniform and safety wear needs replacing, we return old workwear to the supplier to be recycled into new workwear.
And finally, measure > track > report. Across all environmental initiatives we report and measure the impact we are having, and celebrate our shared success in reducing waste.
Reduce, reuse, recycle to #BeatPlasticPollution
Let's turn ambition into action. And work together to zero.
Find out more about our journey to net zero.
