As part of our ongoing commitment to a better environment for ours and our children’s futures, we are proud to announce that on Wednesday 15th September, Hadland Care Group were awarded their fourth Green PEA (Positive Environmental Action). Hadland Care Group are the first company in Poole to be awarded 4 green PEAS and have undertaken an energy audit within the company as well as many actions to reduce our impact on the environment.
We joined the Green Positive Environmental Action (PEA) scheme in 2015 to learn more about what we could do, and the scheme also gave us clear goals to achieve along our journey to earning our five peas, for example cutting energy use at all sites (20) by 20%; cultural change, and using some renewable energy; milestones which we expect to reach by the end of 2016, but which are still the start of the journey.
Hadland Care Group is a family of three companies; Tops Day Nurseries, Aspire Training Team and Reside Care Homes. We started working with Green PEA at the end of 2015 in a bid to reduce our carbon emissions as well as our energy costs so we could re-invest any savings we make into more efficiencies. The first step was to ensure support and engagement from the management team, for which we held a one day Green Conference.
The group has since made radical changes in the short time since joining Green PEA, from amending printer stand-by settings; installing timers on equipment, fitting passive infra red sensors (PIRs) and light sensors on lights so they all turn off when not needed; replacing light fittings with LED fittings; as well as fitting fuel-saving magnets on all the gas and water mains across the nurseries and care homes. The magnets are designed to make the fuel burn hotter in the gas boilers and consequently more efficiently.
Cheryl Hadland, Managing Director of the Group said, “Achieving 4 Green peas is part of a wider cultural change. We are on course to reduce our carbon footprint by at least 20% using a wide variety of methods but we need to do a lot more. We need to learn more about the impact we make on the environment, and to make many more positive actions; sharing knowledge with our colleagues both within the organisation and externally as we go along. Some of these actions will cost nothing other than effort, others will require change and investment, but for the sake of the children in our day nurseries we must do better if we are to make sure the world is a safe and pleasant place for them both now and in the future. We have really just started on this journey and we are excited to continue to work on improving, and to share best practice as we learn and apply the changes. We have a new project just starting which will be on reducing our waste, and especially plastic, going into landfill; for example from plastic bags, packaging, balloons and nappies, for which we need to work with suppliers, colleagues, parents and waste companies. I hope other day nurseries and our local communities will join us in the challenge.”
To find out more about the work Hadland Care Group have undertaken to work towards being more energy efficient you can visit our Going Green section on www.topsandaspirecareers.co.uk , or you can visit the Green PEA website www.greenpeascheme.org.uk. Also see www.plasticoceans.co.uk
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