Ceteris announce significant energy savings across portfolio

With 13 business locations including 5 large serviced office blocks and 170 tenant businesses employing almost 900 employees, Ceteris (Scotland) Ltd. has a huge responsibility as a landlord to develop, lead and manage sustainable buildings.

Ceteris are committed to responsible energy management and will practice energy efficiency throughout all our premises.  Our Policy is to control energy consumption to avoid unnecessary expenditure, improve cost-effectiveness, productivity, working conditions and protect the environment. 

In recognition of our commitment to the environment, we are shortlisted in the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Management Award at the 2017 VIBES – Scottish Environment Business Awards, November 15 2017.

We are delighted to be able to offer this update to all our tenants, customers and stakeholders.

 

ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT & BUSINESS INTEGRATION

We are committed to providing a quality service in a manner that ensures a safe and healthy workplace for our employees and minimises our potential impact on the environment. We state that we will operate in compliance with all relevant environmental legislation and we will strive to use pollution prevention and environmental best practices in all we do.

As a business, we aim to integrate the consideration of environmental concerns and impacts into all of our decision making and activities and continually review and improve our purchasing and operating practices. With our decisions impacting on so many tenant companies and office locations, it is vitally important that we stick to our strategic goals.

It begins with our Green Team, which includes senior management and staff of all levels, which formulates our targets in relation to environmental monitoring and improvement.  

  1. Reduce waste through re-use and recycling and by purchasing recycled, recyclable or re-furbished products and materials where these alternatives are available, economical and suitable.
  2. Promote efficient use of materials and resources throughout our facilities including water, electricity, raw materials and other resources, particularly those that are non-renewable.
  3. Purchase and use environmentally responsible products accordingly.
  4. Buy fuel at the most economic cost whilst ensuring security of supply.
  5. To control usage of energy for each area of the site consistent with its pattern use.
  6. To continually review and improve our purchasing and operating practices.

We constantly measure usage of water, energy, fuel and examine wastage figures. A monthly analysis is conducted into all of the above to compare against targets and previous periods and irregular occurrences investigated.

 

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT & ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF OUR RECENT ACTIVITY

The fact that we run office blocks means that, by definition, our customers have to travel to use our service. With an eye on this and thinking about our tenants fuel consumption, we have introduced an electric car charging point at our e-Centre block in Alloa in an attempt to cut the carbon footprint of their commute.

We have replaced 854 internal light fittings with LED, taking a holistic view to this lighting replacement we removed 359 units and saved a total of 59.9 CO².  Further to this, we have replaced 80 external SON lights with LED saving 7.6Kw and reducing 0.8 CO²

The LED lighting replacement programme is ongoing and we’re planning to replace a further 350 units in late 2017.

Our cleaning team has decreased use of mop buckets by 80% with the introduction of a spray mopping system to save over 1,000 litres of water per year per site.

We have a number of shower facilities across our properties and are planning to achieve a saving of up to 154 litres per minute based on current.  We will achieve this  by replacing the shower heads with water saving showerheads (which can reduce water flow by 30-40%) and installing Shower Savers which cap the flow rate at six litres per minute (normal power showers use up to 20 litres per minute).

These savings and initiatives can make a huge impact as the decisions we have make help our tenants use less water, energy and CO² daily.

 

ECONOMIC BENEFITS & SAVINGS OF OUR POLICY

We have achieved substantial and continued savings with regards to our electricity consumption 2014 – 2017.  These are as a direct result of our LED replacement programme mentioned above plus other initiatives such as

  • Introducing energy-saving heating controls and motion detectors in shared areas
  • Replacement of inefficient kettles with small, energy efficient, timed boilers

Looking at 2017 to date, our overall electricity consumption has decreased 27% across e-Centre, Alloa Business Centre, Hilton House and Springfield House compared to 2014.   Our annual decreases are as follows.

  • 2014-15                 – 10.73% 
  • 2015-16                 –  9.71%
  • 2016-17                 –  8.95%

The figures get even better when you look at specific centres electricity consumption 2014-17 YTD

  • Springfield House  – 47.38%
  • e-Centre                      – 44.95% 
  • Hilton House             – 35.93%

Further to this, our recycling initiates, promotional activity and tenant engagement helped achieve a 15% decrease in waste to landfill from serviced offices in 2016 against 2015.

 

CLEAR COMMUNICATION & BEST PRACTICE

We publish our environmental commitments and targets for all to see on our website which has a specific page dedicated to our Environmental & Energy Policy.

We have also released a number of news items over the last year highlighting our achievements

Ceteris shortlisted in prestigious VIBES environmental awards

Ceteris sites presented with national environmental award as part of Clacksfirst BID

Ceteris achieve Resource Efficiency Pledge – Bronze Level

Ceteris improve energy efficiency and reduce waste to landfill

Our annual customer satisfaction survey (June 2017) had a full section dedicated to engaging with our customers about our recent environmental activities and asking for feedback on how we can do better.

Our aim is to lead by example and provide tenants with information.  We’ve taken advantage of Scottish Government, Scottish Water and ZWS materials and posters to spread the word, share environmental messages and highlight that simple measures can bring seismic changes.

All staff are fully aware of our policies which are regularly reviewed and updated.  New recruits are fully briefed on their personal and corporate responsibilities.

Overall responsibility is held with our Operations Director who reports back to the Board on activity and improvements. This is then fed down to all staff via our MD’s regular Company Update and our annual Business Review which is presented to all staff.

 

ENDS

For further information please contact Angela Ogilvie, Operations Director on 01259 721454.