Green Credentials

All environmental initiatives are embraced by 360 and driven by Fourfront Group. The Group has a dedicated Environmental Director and team who engage employees and encourage them to be accountable for our environmental aims and objectives.

Environmental Credentials

We believe in sustainable office design and the implementation of our robust Environmental Management System (EMS) has gained us the internationally recognised ISO14001 accreditation which has helped grow our environmental and commercial credentials. We are also accredited by the VCA, who are certified by the UK governing body UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service).

In addition, Fourfront Group was placed in the Sunday Times Top 60 Green Companies 2011, being placed 1st in the category ‘Making the World Greener’. These awards set out to identify and celebrate the achievements of British businesses that are striving to improve their environmental performance and use a robust methodology to measure environmental information such as energy spend, waste produced and internal environmental policies, procedures and controls. Through our continued efforts the Group intends to build on our ranking within the Top 60.

Carbon Reduction

Reducing carbon emissions from our own business activities and our clients’ interior projects is our principal aim. We commit first to minimising any emissions and only then offsetting the balance. We do this by meticulously monitoring our energy use and waste production, then implementing measures to substantially reduce these. In 2011, Fourfront Group reduced energy usage by 14% and we are well on our way to meeting ambitious reduction targets for 2011/12.

 

Carbon Negative

We offset the balance of the carbon emissions we cannot avoid by doing something positive for the environment. We do this by working with the UK based environmental charities Moor Trees and Trees for Cities.

Established in 1999, Moor Trees creates and restores native woodland for biodiversity benefit and for climate change mitigation. We support their tree planting, which produces not only tangible environmental benefits, but also social ones through their working with hundreds of volunteers of all ages and abilities each year. More recently, we have formed a partnership with Trees for Cities, a London-based independent charity working with local communities on tree planting and regeneration projects in urban areas.

Through our partnership work with Moor Trees and Trees for Cities, Fourfront Group is able to offset our carbon footprint and achieve Carbon Negative status. In 2009/10 the company’s carbon footprint was 187.5 tonnes, which was a 4.75% decrease on the previous year. Since Fourfront Group began offsetting our carbon emissions, we have helped plant over 2,000 trees. This has helped ensure the Group is Carbon Negative, and better still, we plant many of the trees ourselves at tree planting weekends.

Sustainable Sourcing

The environmental sustainability of our supply chain is important to us as environmentally-responsible suppliers benefit both our business and our clients. We encourage our sub-contractors and suppliers to improve their own environmental performance and have supported building services contractor MD Enertech in their bid to achieve the ISO14001 environmental accreditation. We also offer our sub-contractors training to help them achieve the BS8555 (Acorn) environmental standard to help improve their green credentials.

Our biggest environmental impact is ‘waste to landfill’ so we vet and monitor our office refurbishment sub-contractors to ensure their own environmental standards are high. As part of our “reduce, reuse, recycle” programme, we also donate materials from office refurbishment project to the local community whenever possible. An example of that was the Micro P project in Chineham where we donated plywood and insulation wool to help insulate the loft of the Chineham Scout Group and avoid waste ending up in landfill. Furniture was also donated to Ashley Primary School from a furniture installation project for client Motability.