Grundon enhances green credentials with ISO 50001 Energy Management certification

Grundon Waste Management are delighted to announce that the company is now certified by BSI to ISO 50001:2011, the standard for Energy Management. This certification applies across all sites operated by the company where energy is used and means that Grundon Waste Management is fully compliant with the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS).

ESOS is a mandatory energy assessment scheme for organisations in the UK that meet the qualification criteria, and has been introduced to ensure that the UK complies with the requirements of the European Union’s Energy Efficiency Directive. The assessment scheme currently applies to around 7,300 UK businesses that meet the qualification criteria and is administered by the Environment Agency (EA).

Organisations that qualify, namely those who employ 250 or more staff and have an annual turnover in excess of around £42 million or an annual balance sheet of around £36 million, must carry out ESOS assessments every four years. These assessments are audits of the energy used in the organisations’ industrial processes, buildings and transport, and are used to identify cost-effective energy saving measures. Energy used in the context of an ESOS assessment includes electricity, gas, renewables, heating oil, diesel and petrol.

Qualifying organisations must notify the EA by the set deadline of 5 December 2015, that they have complied with their ESOS obligations.

One of the ways of meeting the ESOS requirements is by being certified to ISO50001, Grundon decided this was the best option as the company already had an integrated management system in place which satisfies the requirements of ISO 9001 (Quality Management), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management) and OHSAS 18001 (Occupational Health & Safety Management) under the framework guidance of PAS 99 (Integrated Management Systems).

Speaking about Grundon’s certification to ISO 50001, Toni Robinson, compliance manager, said “At Grundon we have always managed our energy and therefore adding the specifics of ISO 50001 to our current integrated management system hasn’t been too onerous a task. The effective and efficient management of energy has been embedded into operation of the Grundon business for many years.

“By achieving this certification we have proven as a business that we manage our energy usage effectively. Every year at Grundon we measure, monitor and manage, setting annual environmental targets and using the indicators to help understand and mitigate the environmental impact of our operations.

“For example, we have continued to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, having seen a reduction of 10.9% in CO2 equivalents last year and an overall reduction of 77.3% since 2000.

“During our energy reviews, we identified that diesel usage by our collection vehicle and company car fleets was the single largest energy source used by the business, accounting in 2014 for 61.6% of our overall energy usage. This was why we had partnered with The CarbonNeutral Company, a world-leading provider of carbon reduction solutions, to invest in a three-year programme to offset our vehicle emissions and support a community reforestation project in rural Uganda.

“Our commitment to operating a CarbonNeutral® vehicle fleet means that every time we collect waste from a customer site or a member of the Grundon team visits a customer in a company car, not only is the journey be CarbonNeutral®, but it will also avoids adding to the customers’ own carbon footprint.

For our customers, seeing Grundon comply with ISO 50001 and our initiatives such as the CarbonNeutral® fleet is a reassurance. It is proof that they are working with a business that is proud of its commitment to the green agenda and operating the business responsibly.”

There was also good news for the Lakeside Energy from Waste facility, a joint venture between Viridor and Grundon, which have also achieved certification satisfying the requirements of ISO50001 following an audit by Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance Limited (LRQA).

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