Our Green Policy

Climate change is a constant threat to our future generations, and one that we are all responsible for.

Questions have been asked for many years regarding claims about the true impact of carbon emissions upon climate change.  However, the vast majority of scientists agree that global warming is real, it’s already happening and that it is the result of our activities and not a natural occurrence. (1)  The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable.

Across the world many, many scenes like this can be found with the impact of rising temperatures causing devastation upon many ecosystems, including our own.

The effects are well publicised and include the following:

• The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. (2)

• Heat Waves will become more frequent and intense.

• The flow of ice from glaciers in Greenland has more than doubled over the past decade. (3)

• At least 279 species of plants and animals are already responding to global warming, moving closer to the poles. (4) 

• More than a million species world wide could be driven to extinction by 2050. (5)

• The Arctic Ocean could be ice free in the summer by 2050 (6)

PET DOCTORS - GOING GREENER

Pet Doctors has made a strong commitment to become a greener, more ethical company, and to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet.

This decision has been made due to growing concerns about deforestation, poverty and exploitation in other countries, pollution and ultimately climate change.  If nothing is done to turn around the rate of increasing carbon output we might not leave the world as we know it for future generations.

The government has set a recommended target that carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by 60% by the year 2050!  They are already behind that target, so it really is up to us, as a company and as individuals to pull together and make the difference that is needed.

Pet Doctors has adopted several policies that we hope you will feel good about following them.  We would like to embrace the enthusiasm that so many of our staff have already shown for this project and encourage everyone to become hardcore-greenies!

RECYCLING

Why Recycle?

By recycling materials and using recycled products we can reduce the amount of waste that goes into land fill and reduce carbon emissions.

The average house is recycling about 17% of their waste when it is possible to recycle up to 60%!  Dumping our waste in landfill is harmful to the environment, wildlife and we are running out of room to do it (UK households produce 30.5 million tonnes of waste in 2004!).  A glass bottle is 100% recyclable, but put it in a landfill will NEVER decompose.

Deforestation is a big problem due to growing demands for materials and open land for growing crops; this accounts for 20% of carbon emissions.  By only buying recycled paper products we can reduce the amount of trees that are cut down – it takes 24 trees to make one tonne of paper.  It also helps reduce carbon emissions as 70% less energy is required to recycle paper compared with making it from scratch.

WHAT ARE WE DOING?

We encourage all staff to embrace the 3 R’s:

• Reduce

• Re-use

• Recycle

We try to reduce all waste by only printing/using paper when we have to, we only give out plastic bags when they are wanted, re-using as much as we can; scrap paper; plastic bags etc.

A recycling system is being set up in each individual site, enabling us to recycle paper, plastics, cans, cardboard and confidential documents.

Where possible we will only buy recycled or sustainable source paper products.  We have written a new shopping guide which includes recycled products.  In our shopping list we have included Ecover products,.  These are designed to reduce environmental pollution by using natural ingredients to disinfect and clean.  They don’t contain any of the above chemicals and are biodegradable.  They even use a ‘ecological factory’ to produce their products, using green energy and recycling.

We are also extra careful to make sure we are disposing of all our chemical waste correctly and not throwing harmful products down the drain.

REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS

What are we doing?

• Turning off the lights and computer systems at the end of each day

• Only using air conditioning when it is really necessary

• Unplugging electrical devises when they are not being use – charging equipment still drains energy if it is left in.   

• Replacing light bulbs with energy saving light bulbs

• Using our washing machines on 30 degrees rather than 40 degrees

• Embracing the 3 R’s - reduce - re-use - recycle

FAIRTRADE PRODUCTS

Many big companies produce their products on a large scale and keep their costs as low as possible to make a larger profit.  This often means that workers in developing countries are being exploited for their products making it increasingly difficult for them to improve their lives and communities.  The Fairtrade foundation was set up in 1992 to set an international standard of Fairtrade and ensure disadvantaged producers in the developing world are getting a better deal.  To display the Fairtrade mark the product must meet thee standards.  The producers will receive a regular income and a better rate of pay as well as a premium that is invested in social or economic development projects.

Exploitation is one of the major contributors to poverty in the developing world.  We urge all staff to consider their personal shopping lists and think seriously about responsible consumerism. If cost is an issue, it may be better to have less of something that you can feel good about, than more of something that comes with a greater cost to others.

What are we doing?

Pet Doctors will only purchase tea, coffee and sugar that are Fairtrade labelled.  Wherever a Fairtrade alternative is available we ask that our staff buy this.

The Future

This is only the beginning for us, the first few steps that hopefully help to engage all Pet Doctors employees into a greener style of living and working.

We have other projects lined up to further our efforts to produce as little carbon as possible and will keep you updated with progress made.  We will also let you know if all our efforts are working, and aim to see a reduction in the energy we use.

References:

(1) According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), this era of global warming ‘is likely to be entirely natural in origin’ and ‘the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence of the global climate.’

(2)Emanueal,K. 2005. Increasing destructiveness of tropical cyclones over the past 30 years. Nature 436:686-688

(3)Krabill, W.E.Hanna, P.Huybrechts, W. Abdalati, J.Cappelen, B. Csatho, E. Frefick, S.Manizade, C.Martin, J.Sonntag, R. Swift, R.Thomas and J.Yungel 2004. Greenland Ice Sheet: Increased coastal thinning.  Geophysical Research Letters 31.

(4) Nature

(5) Time Magazine, Feeling the Heat, David Bjerklie March 26 2006

(6) Artic Climate Impact Assessment 2004.  Impacts of a warming Arctic.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.  Also quoted in Time Magazine, Vicious Cycles, Missy adams March 26 2006.