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SUSTAINABLE EAST MIDLANDS
www.emc-dnl.co.uk/sustainability
DNS achieves carbon neutrality Document Network Services (DNS), a company that aims to help solve problems for business processes, has achieved carbon-neutrality. The Derby-based firm, a Chamber patron, now balances the CO2 its business emits by removing an equal amount from the atmosphere. It has achieved this by working with Co-Treetment, a charity specialising in planting trees to create woodland spaces within the East Midlands. DNS managing director Darren Marsh (pictured) said: “Since DNS opened its doors back in 1996, being innovative and forward-thinking was at the forefront of our business plans. “Therefore, it is of utmost importance for us to be able to offer solutions that continuously evolve, boost productivity and eliminate waste. “We are very proud to be carbon-neutral and are very much looking forward to getting stuck in by physically planting trees ourselves this year too.” The company’s next step will be to offset emissions from the services it offers to clients too via tree-planting. It has also adapted solutions to be more environmentally-friendly by implementing print management software so that print usage can be monitored and wastage reduced, recycling tones and printers, and offering modern communications systems that enable phone calls to be made from laptops or mobiles. Co-Treetment company director Darrell Taylor said the trees planted locally by DNS every year will absorb carbon, help to prevent flooding and create natural spaces for wildlife to thrive. He added: “DNS continues to make a positive impact to the East Midlands both through its fantastic services and products, and increasingly through its tangible corporate social responsibility activities, they are a company that Co-Treetment is proud to work with.”
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The Hillside Environmental team, from left: Founder and director Russell Burton, project manager Charlie Davies, project design manager Murray Burton and assistant project engineer Adam Morris
Hillside Environmental converts to green energy An environmental consultancy based near Newark has gone carbon-neutral – showing the way forward for other businesses it supports. Hillside Environmental, which helps UK organisations to reduce their carbon footprint, practised what it preaches by converting to 100% green energy and planting 3.2 hectares of natural woodland. Its office in Caunton is powered by heat pumps, which use solar energy generated on site to warm the building. This is the same approach it advocates for clients, which Hillside has also helped to secure finance for green projects and undertake environmental audits. Founder and director Russell Burton said: “We have found that businesses are looking to improve their resilience in the market, especially since the pandemic. “Going green promotes cost savings thanks to less reliance on the grid, and competitive advantage since the public is now expecting businesses to be ethical.” It supported Mainline Mouldings, a picture frame moulding supplier based in Langar,
Nottinghamshire, in evaluating and helping to reduce its carbon emissions by building a plan for the company to switch to recycled materials for its products.
‘Going green promotes cost savings thanks to less reliance on the grid’ Mainline’s managing director Chris Daynes said the recommendations had “given us the clarity and confidence to build an attainable strategy to reach our goals”. In a project with Hampshire-based quarry operator Raymond Brown Quarry Group, Hillside proved that switching the fuel it uses for vehicles to biofuel was a low-impact, cost-effective way to cut emissions by 95%. Hillside has also secured £2.8m worth of grant funding for Gloucestershire College to introduce a renewable energy system as part of a £4.8m project to reduce emissions by 63% in year one and 95% by 2030.
Keeping the world’s lagoons safe Researchers from the University of Derby are leading a major new international effort to ensure the long-term future of the world’s lagoons and the communities that depend on them. The Resilient Lagoon Network (RLN) aims to understand and address a complex set of interconnected problems central to the sustainability of ecosystems, economies and everyday lives. Lagoons provide an array of fundamental, valuable resources essential to the wellbeing of coastal communities in regions such as West Africa and elsewhere in the global South. But they are under mounting pressure from issues such as population growth, pollution, poor
sanitation and climate change-related threats such as sea-level rise and erosion. RLN co-founder Dr Sian Davies-Vollum, head of the University of Derby’s School of Built and Natural Environment, said: “We want to provide an international platform for tackling these problems. As well as facilitating knowledge transfer, we believe it’s vital to unite policymakers and practitioners with people – that is, those who actually live and work in these threatened communities.” The team at the heart of the RLN draws from academia in the UK and Africa, with specialists in fields such as geology, ecology, coastal engineering, development studies and public health.