Environment

Reducing & Offsetting Emissions 

2021 sees the opening of our new offices, the excitement and energy around the new offices has reinvigorated our efforts to reduce our carbon emissions. The purpose built offices are at the top of the spectrum in terms of energy efficiency. 

Key features of our new building include: 

• 50 initial roof solar panels to offset energy usage
• 2 electric vehicle recharge points in our private car park, along with bicycle parking
• An attenuation tank which releases storm-water slowly into the drainage network 
• Oil or petrol leakages from vehicles is filtered by a Petrol Interceptor before the water reaches the drainage network. Permeable paving also facilitates the above.

The new offices afford us new opportunities to record and monitor our carbon emissions. Following an initial period of review, we will look to offset our emissions with the ultimate goal of becoming truly carbon neutral.  

Green IT

• Carbon benefits of cloud computing; Thesaurus Connect is hosted in Microsoft Azure using Azure Cloud Services. Research shows that Microsoft cloud is as much as 93% more energy efficient and as much as 98% more carbon efficient than on-premises solutions. Read the report here. See Microsoft Azure's approach to sustainability here.
• Our customers can purchase directly from our websites, invoices are instantly created and sent electronically, minimising printing and copying requirements.
• Our software is downloadable from our websites, eliminating the distribution, consumption and landfill of almost 20,000 CDs and USB sticks each year.
• Our payroll and cloud software allows and promotes the use of email and digital payslips, reducing paper usage significantly.

Workplace Efficiencies 

We concentrate on improving the efficiency of internal processes and procedures in the same way as we do for our external customers.

In addition, our in-house ECO Squad is tasked with raising awareness amongst all our staff. They promote initiatives which minimise single-use plastics, implement effective recycling and explore other ways to reduce our carbon impact as a business and as individuals. 

Celebrating Earth Day allows to reset and renew our endeavours annually.