Nottingham businesses make Great Big Green Week pledges following tree planting initiative
Four Nottingham businesses including Roadgas, the UK’s leading supplier of natural gas and biomethane refuelling station infrastructure, have made environmental pledges as part of Climate Coalition’s Great Big Green Week - a national initiative running from 18th – 26th September.
Great Big Green Week is a week-long celebration of action on climate change, with over 3,000 events taking place across the country, encouraging businesses, community groups and individuals to highlight their carbon emissions in a variety of creative ways. Events range from art installations and pop-up cafes, to community stalls and concerts.
The importance of the week has been amplified by the impacts seen by extreme weather caused by climate change as well as the UK being host of COP26 - a major UN Global Climate Summit - taking place in Glasgow this November.
For this year’s Great Big Green Week, Roadgas has partnered with Nottingham City Transport, The Dairy Creative Agency and Nottingham Rugby Club who have all agreed to make a collective green pledge through a tree planting initiative. The four businesses have come together to plant 15 Rowan saplings and 1 Oak sapling at Lady Bay, home to Nottingham Rugby Club, which will help towards offsetting local carbon emissions from their operations. Roadgas gas also provided bamboo canes to support the saplings alongside rabbit protectors and cable ties.
Alongside the collective tree planting initiative, each of the four businesses has made its own green pledge with Roadgas reducing the amount of plastic water bottles it consumes - as the company’s Marketing Director Becky Rix goes on to explain.
“A standard 500ml water bottle has a carbon footprint of 82.8 grams - as referenced by green.brightblue. We’ve found that as a business we are using three of those per day on average, which is 780 bottles per year,”
“We’re now encouraging staff to use reusable water bottles for drinks, as well as a water filter for fresh tap water. If we cut out plastic bottles all together, then we could save 64kg of carbon per year. This is the equivalent of driving a regular petrol car 160 miles per year or heating an average UK home for 9 days - a phenomenal saving!”
The Dairy Creative Agency’s pledge is to bolster its pre-existing Green Policy - which aims to minimise the company’s emissions. This includes only using recycled paper, recycling all unused or scrap paper and card, recycling used printer cartridges, using only low energy light bulbs, minimising heating and turning off all printers and computers when not in use.
Nottingham City Transport’s pledge is to keep investing in brand new, low and zero emission buses, ensuring bus users in Nottingham continue to travel on one of the greenest and cleanest bus fleets in the country.
Nottingham Rugby’s pledge is to continue to recycle large amounts of waste on site, whilst looking for opportunities to reduce its carbon footprint at Lady Bay Sports ground. The club is currently working with a local company to carry out a full site assessment - with the aim of identifying potential environmental improvements moving forward.
Alongside the pledges made, Nottingham City Transport is running a competition, asking people to make their own green pledge as part of the city’s wider CN28 campaign. Entrants are asked to share them with NCT on any of its social media channels for the duration of the Great Big Green Week.
The most innovative pledge, as decided by representatives from all four participating businesses, will win a year’s free travel with NCT as well as two season tickets for Nottingham Rugby Club for the 2021/22 season.
For Richard Mallender, Green Party Councillor for Lady Bay, the efforts of all four businesses are commendable and send out the right message locally.
“It's fantastic to see all the partners coming together to help cut carbon and work for a bright green future!”
“The trees planted are a clear symbol of their commitment to cutting carbon and giving us all a cleaner, greener world.”
Image (L-R): Marketing Director at Roadgas - Becky Rix, Nottinghamshire Green Party Councillor Richard Mallender, Nottingham Rugby's Josh Poullet, Head of Marketing at NCT - Anthony Carver-Smith and Managing Director at The Dairy Creative Agency - Nigel Rowlson.
Roadgas.co.uk - Becky Rix Marketing Director beckyrix@roadgas.co.uk
