Our top corporate
priority is to Care for the Environment throughout the district,
and this includes the council's own buildings and activities.
Five Rules for Action
All council staff are asked to stick to five basic rules for
action. These are to:
- Switch off lights when leaving a room empty.
- Switch off computers and monitors properly don't leave them on
standby.
- Switch off mobile phone chargers when not in use. They still
use electricity even if they are not charging up a phone
battery.
- Waste less paper, by using email whenever possible
- Always photocopy double-sided, to cut down on waste
These simple measures reduce our environmental impact, and
save money at the same time.
Environmental policies
Within the council we have our own environmental
policy (MS Word, 66KB), which helps us to reduce our
environmental impact.
Our Parks Division has achieved an internationally recognised
level of good environmental management, called ISO 14001.
We are also a
Fairtrade Council. This means we support
the aims of Fairtrade, which is a good way of helping third world
producers work towards sustainable development. We make sure
Fairtrade tea and coffee are available for meetings, and we provide
information on Fairtrade to the public
The Environment Index
In order to show our commitment to environmental issues,
and to help us to improve performance, we participate in the annual
Environment Index, run by Business in the
Community.
The Index lets us check how we compare to other similar
organisations, and it helps us to plan how we can make continual
improvements.