ITC Concepts

ITC Concepts in Purley Way worked with ENVIBE, a part of Croydon's Economic Development Company, to develop a number of projects which ranged from reducing paper to saving electricity and water in order to achieve the cost cuts.

In addition, the company reduced its waste to landfill by 30% and cut its use of petrol and diesel by around 30%, helping it to win a host of awards including South London Business' Best Large Business in 2009 and the Green Guardian Business Award for Croydon in 2008.

ITC Concepts, which specialises in refurbishment, fitting out, new build and maintenance projects across London and the South East, even provides every new employee with a young tree, helping to sow the environmental seed from the first day.

Ian Conway, Managing Director, said: "In 2005, ITC Concepts made a conscious decision to be pro-active with regard to its environmental responsibilities by seeking ways to reduce any negative impact on the environment and introduce measures to protect and enhance it.

All of our initiatives have been borne out of or come directly from our relationship with ENVIBE, and the fantastic support and guidance they continually and unstintingly gave.

In monetary terms our environmental drive has cost us very little but has saved us a great deal in financial terms. It has also provided a valuable marketing opportunity for the company; as along with the environmental awards and achievements, ITC can truly claim to have undergone a change in attitude in its policies and in its 40 plus staff.  Envibe has played a key part in these environmental achievements."

In 2005, the company, which has a £20m turnover, engaged its entire staff in its programme to find low cost methods of lessening its impact on the environment. Through encouraging increased use of electronic communication, particularly for tenders and internal memos, printing double-sided where printed documents were needed, and recycling paper, ink and card, the company reduced paper consumption from 25 reams of paper per employee per year in 2006, to just under 3 reams per employee by 2008, saving the business over £24,000.

Their recycling initially started with paper and card within their office but this now includes plastic and glass and their waste management programme has been extended to all their project sites, helping them achieve a reduction of 30% in their waste to landfill.

By reducing their use of electricity and water ITC Concepts have achieved a tremendous savings total of £76,000 since 2005. Some of these energy and water saving initiatives include:

• Locating and monitoring of utilities meters
• Turning off PC's, photocopiers, printers, and lights at night
• Turning off boilers over the weekend
• Internal and external timed lighting
• All high level, low voltage lighting in the office corridor replaced with low energy LED lighting
• Office heating reduced by 1 degree
• Water saving devices in washrooms
• A procedure is in place for reporting leaks
• Time adjusted flushes in urinals

ITC Concepts also worked with ENVIBE partner, Seltrans, to produce a Workplace Travel Plan. They have policies in place to ensure staff use public transport when travelling to London and a car sharing scheme is in place for staff commuting and travelling to meetings off site where it is not practical to use public transport.

They have also installed video conferencing to assist communication with project sites and to reduce the need for some site travel. From 2007 to 2008, ITC Concepts made a 36.55% saving in the use of petrol and 28.39% saving in the use of diesel.

ITC Concepts are currently investigating the purchase of materials from recycled, recyclable, renewable and/or sustainable resources and have implemented a policy to ensure, unless otherwise instructed, all wood will be purchased from sustainable sources. Furthermore, ITC are striving to ensure all purchases are made through local companies to reduce transport costs and the effects on the environment.

To find out more about ENVIBE and the free guidance it can provide on waste management, recycling, energy saving, water saving, green purchasing sustainable travel and more, visit www.envibe.co.uk