Environmental Policy

As a company that mainly works in the rural environment and is staffed by a team who are all passionate about environmental sustainability, we recognise that the result of our operations has a direct impact on the environment we work and live in. For us, preservation of the natural environment goes beyond legislative and commercial duties. We see the result of ours and other activities each and every day. For our lifestyle and business to be sustainable we must take our responsibilities seriously. We know this is just the beginning of the journey and are dedicated to making more changes in the future.

Because we are committed to environmental sustainability our staff are always looking for new ways to reduce our environmental impact by adopting new green working practices and policy’s however, we feel that the time has come to formalise our approach in the following document.

We make every effort to re-use and recycle all of our old equipment, packaging and offcuts from building projects and have taken steps as an organisation to reduce the waste that is inevitably produced during our day to day operations.
Timber used in projects is always sourced responsible from local timber yards and ordered to fit the job to reduced waste. Any offcuts that can’t be re used, along with cardboard packaging end up in our biomass boiler.
We make sure our suppliers source their products responsibly and where possible use local suppliers, for example our wide range of wooden outdoor furniture features the FSC certification plaque.
We are aiming to become as self sufficient as possible, manufacturing and maintaining all of our own stock in order to reduce the number of large vehicles traveling around the world to deliver equipment. This is something we have managed to do with our PVC, Electricals and hopefully soon our furniture departments.

We have moved away from film coated single use carpet and have invested in newer, more durable carpet lines. Old carpet is either taken back to the manufacturers where they feed it through a machine, break it down and work it into brand new carpet, or given to local companies who can make use of it for things such as pond linings and frost shielding. We recently gave a large quantity of disused carpet to BANES council to use as weed suppressant on a large dormant allotment.
We never throw away old PVC, we make every effort to repair our PVC walls and roofs, and when they are no longer usable in their current role, we turn them into things like bags and gutters. This year we invested in a brand-new high frequency welder to allow us to repair larger items that we previously couldn’t.

In 2016 we built our own rain water harvesting system comprising of a large underground tank and a series of well-placed water containers which when combined are capable of storing up to 60,000 litres of rain water. This is then fed through a UV filter system and used to clean our stock all year round. We are now completely self sufficient on water.

We aim to plant a Tree for every wedding marquee that we set up, currently we are averaging 50 trees each year planted on or around our premises. We intend to continue planting trees and hope to match our planting with marquees we erect.

We regularly check our vehicle fleet to enable optimal fuel efficiency, making sure that lorry and van tyres are at the correct pressure, engines are regularly serviced and the loads do not exceed the capacity of the vehicle. In the not too distant future, we will be trading in our diesel Site visit car for a fully Electric alternative. We also have a strict no idling policy within our yard which applies to staff, visiting customers, delivery drivers and outside contractors.

Responsibility

At South west Marquees the entire core team is responsible for ensuring that this environmental policy is implemented, however, all employees both seasonal and full time have a responsibility in their area to ensure that the aims and objectives of the policy are met.
Policy aims
We endeavour to:
⦁ Comply with all relevant regulatory requirements
⦁ Continually improve and monitor environmental performance
⦁ Continually improve and reduce environmental impacts
⦁ Increase employee awareness of environmental impacts

Office

We:
⦁ Have moved away from printed weekly payslips and now email our employees E-slips
⦁ Aim to half our usage of paper year on year
⦁ Ensure that our office supplies are responsibly sourced and everything possible is recycled all year round
⦁ No longer send out paper marketing materials such as brochures

Energy and water

We:
⦁ Harvest rain water using a system of tanks and IBC’s capable of harvesting up to 60,000 litres of rain water, which is then filtered using a UV filter system and used to wash and maintain our equipment all year round. This has vastly reduced our water consumption and allowed us to maintain a high standard of equipment care.
⦁ Have started to manufacture our own concrete ballasts in order to move away from water weights to further reduce our water usage.

Transportation

We:

⦁ Own a Hybrid car that we use exclusively for Site visits
⦁ Use single 26Tonne Lorry for larger jobs in place of multiple smaller lorries.
⦁ Our currently fleet is 50% Euro 6 standard vehicles or above
⦁ Multi load jobs to reduce our transport miles
⦁ Minimise Toxic emissions through the selection and use of a modern, well maintained and efficient vehicle fleet.

⦁ Encourage our staff to cycle to work and use our secure bicycle lock up

⦁ we also operate a cycle top work scheme

Day to day operations

We:
⦁ Recycle all Carpet
⦁ Recycle PVC
⦁ Re-use Wood
⦁ Have a recycling station for domestic use

Monitoring and improvement

We will:
⦁ Comply with all relevant regulatory requirements
⦁ Continually improve and monitor environmental performance
⦁ Continually improve and reduce our impact on the environment

Culture

We Will:
⦁ Update this policy at least once annually in consultation with staff and other stake holders where necessary
⦁ Aim to continually improve the way we operate to reduce our impact on the environment in all areas

Update for 2023

⦁ We are constantly updating our fleet of vehicles and continue to replace older vehicles in our fleet with newer Euro 6 or Hybrid vehicles.

⦁We have begun to streamline how we do things in the office in an attempt to cut down on our use of office supplies (pens, paper, printer ink etc)

Update for 2024

⦁We have continued reduce our environmental impact in the office, reducing our need for printer ink, Paper etc by 75% and although there will likely always been a need for a pen and paper on those slightly trickier site visits, our aim is to go almost completely digital with our office and admin tasks by 2025

⦁We have continued to maintain our vehicles to the highest possible standard in house where possible to reduce the need for trips to the garage

⦁Our no Idling policy for all vehicles remains effective and in place

⦁We are now completely self-sufficient with our manufacturing and repairing set up which means we have almost entirely cut out our need to send of equipment to be replaced or repaired (which quite often meant organising a pallet delivery to the midlands)

⦁We have continued to work with other suppliers working locally, but based further up country to provide ballasts for their marquees which reduces the number of large vehicles having to travel down country.

⦁We are still continuing to harvest rain water for all of our ballast and yard supply.

⦁Our energy that we currently do not provide ourselves comes from 100% renewable sourced and a provider who are an independently approved ethical supplier

⦁We are aiming to run our office from 100% solar energy by 2025

⦁We Will continue to monitor and improve our practices.