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Reporting Boundary: London office operations
(10 Ewhurst road, London SE4 1AQ)
Emission sources: Electricity, T&D losses, natural gas, water, waste, fleet, paper use
Reporting Period: 01 Apr 2020 – 31 Mar 2021
We engage our employees and wider stakeholders to unlock their talent and knowledge to drive year on year progress in sustainability.
We recognise that transparent communication is essential for transformational change and we quantifiably contribute to 9 SDG’s.
Shield Pest Control UK, a well-established, friendly and professional company that takes great pride in providing the highest standard of pest control in the UK, has achieved Planet Mark certification.
This is Shield Pest Control UK’s third year of business carbon footprint reporting and Planet Mark certification. Since certifying to Planet Mark, the company has set a target to reduce emissions by 5% annually.
Shield Pest Control UK’s total carbon footprint in the year ending March 2021 was 31.1 tCO2e, a reduction of 34.6%. Shield Pest Control UK’s total carbon per employee in the year ending in March 2021 was 1.1 tCO2e, a reduction of 30.1%.
“Congratulations to Shield Pest Control on a fantastic year of carbon reduction. In their three years of Planet Mark certification, the team has demonstrated real capability in acknowledging, and embracing, the challenges of creating a low carbon future. I commend their dedication to reducing their footprint, and look forward to next year’s results.”
In recent years Shield Pest Control have made substantial progress against its sustainability goals. Shield Pest Control’s sustainability means being a responsible service provider. This is integrated as a core value in its business. The aim of being a responsible service provider programme is to manage its environmental footprint, responsibly source and supporting the communities and clients the team engages with while maintaining sustainable growth. Under this aim, there are three pillars of action: People, Planet and Community.
Not only does Shield Pest Control now deal with pest control operations in the most environmentally friendly fashion possible, but its business operations team have adopted significant changes in their ways of working. From reusing scrap paper to sending clients updated RAMs via file transfers, the team has reduced its paper usage by 25,000 pages.
Based in South London, Shield Pest Control’s mission is to show that smaller businesses, working within highly regulated and traditional industries, can make a sustainable difference by improving what they can change, both internally and via customer engagement.
Shield Pest Control work with both residential and commercial clients and provide a high quality, friendly, professional service. The company was granted a Royal Warrant for services to HM The Queen in 2008, demonstrating their excellence and quality of service.
Shield are committed to practices that prevent pollution, reduce waste and support environmental protection. They seek to minimise their environmental impact and promote biodiversity.
Examples of sustainable changes include:
– A switch from van driving to the use of footmen for clients in London has led to a massive 45% reduction in fleet travel.
– Emissions reduced further by an electric/hybrid-only car policy implemented for all management/fleet vehicles.
– Working towards more non-toxic solutions by replacing rodenticides with non-toxic bait to monitor after rodent infestations are under control.
– Using the services of a sniffer dog to save time inspecting sites and allowing baits/sprays to be targeted to areas of infestation, preventing unnecessary ‘blanket baiting/spraying’.
– Using motion cameras to determine the type of pest so that trapping can replace bait.
– All bait boxes sent for disposal are recycled.
– Customer job sheets check if the most sustainable solution has been provided.
These small but significant changes have made a huge cultural difference across all areas of the business and employees now think more sustainably and consider the part they play in making improvements.
By identifying key business practices that can be improved such as waste disposal, use of footmen, office recycling and community environment Shield have been able to achieve an impressive reduction of emissions over the last twelve months resulting in positive feedback from clients and even new business.
As a SME business Shield had to look creatively at the way they measure progress and performance. They employ suppliers who have the measures and certification in place to maintain continuous improvement. Choosing a waste disposal partner that charges per bag for example, has encouraged a focus on recycling and the reuse of job-related materials. Targets to reduce requests for printed copies of work summaries and instead promoting access to this data via web file transfer significantly reduces use of ink/paper resources and is more time and cost efficient. Positive changes are recorded, celebrated and rewarded every month.
Staff engagement and understanding has improved following the creation of sustainability champions with challenges to reduce the carbon footprint in their area of responsibility. This has been achieved by regular education sessions based on the Planet Mark steps and the celebration of best practice. Asking the team for ideas has resulted in working with the local community, joining the local Street Trees campaign, planting trees in the local area and recycling expired mobile and data devices for use in local schools and community centres.
Pest control is an industry that has long ignored some of the benefits of a vibrant sustainability policy, it is Shield’s mission to drive cultural change by sharing every win small or large across their digital channels and those of their partners. Sharing the message, working together, making the changes for our future.
As part of the Planet Mark certification, Shield Pest Control has committed to making a year-on-year reduction.
