This policy for Sustainable Development within Mocha has been agreed and approved by the
Company Directors. It applies to all operations of Mocha Productions Ltd, its functions,
management and staff, and is consistent with the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development.
Mocha’s Green Officer, Phil Halpin, takes overall responsibility. All management activity, including
overseeing progress towards targets, is delegated to a Sustainable Development Team comprising
Company Director Phil Halpin and Commercial Manager Kate WIlson
Recognising an SME’s Sustainable Development Responsibilities:
SME’s have become the fastest growing business sector in the UK business community and
comprise 99.8% of its 3.7 million businesses.
They account for 58% of UK employment and 38% of GDP (Smith and Kemp 1998).
Their number is also set to increase substantially in the future due to:
· More flexible production methods
· The reorganisation, downsizing and outsourcing by large firms
· An increase in franchising and self-employment
Whilst, individually, they usually have far less environmental impacts than larger companies,
collectively they have a very substantial environmental impact. Addressing environmental
management issues in SME’s has proven to be difficult for a number of reasons and the
approaches used by stakeholders, such as regulators, to address these issues in larger companies
are not appropriate. Their failure to adequately address their environmental performance means
that they have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators and other external agencies.
There are a number of generic characteristics of SME’s that limit their capacity to deal with
environmental management issues. These often include:
· Widespread ignorance of the environmental impacts that they cause and the
legislation that governs them,
· Oblivious to the importance of sustainability,
· Cynicism of the benefits of self-regulation and environmental management tools,
· Lack of access to expertise and information,
· Lack of access to credit and capital,
· Difficulty in reaching, mobilising or engaging in any context related to environmental
performance improvement,
· Lack of dialogue with regulators and difficulties in managing consistent legislative
compliance.
Any method of raising awareness and encourage them to improve their environmental performance
must not only take into account these limitations, but must also be proportionate to the complexity
and size of their operations (SME’s and the Environment 2000).
All information from: Hillary, R (Ed) (2000) “Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the
Environment”, Greenleaf Publishing; London.
As an SME, Mocha acknowledge its previous ignorance to the environmental impacts of its
operations and resolve to fully abide by the following policy consistent with the UK Strategy for
Sustainable Development.
Mocha supports and actively contributes to the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development,
which has four main aims:
• social progress which recognises the needs of everyone
• effective protection of the environment
• prudent use of natural resources
• maintenance of high and stable levels of economic growth and employment
Mocha will promote and monitor continual improvement by:
• undertaking full environmental appraisals where particularly significant impacts are
identified
• including issues of sustainable development on regular Board Meeting agendas
• openly communicating progress on environmental issues to staff
• responding appropriately to requests for information externally
• ensuring compliance with all relevant legislation and codes of practice
• reviewing this Sustainable Development Policy regularly and encouraging its
suppliers to comply
• integrating sustainable development into procurement activity
• establishing continual improvement targets, against which performance can be measured
and monitored
• educating and motivating staff and contractors to operate in an environmentally
responsible manner and to conserve resources wherever practicable
• Company Directors being personally involved in activities to promote sustainable
development within the organisation (reviewing effectiveness of policies, participating in
events and giving recognition to individuals involved with sustainable development
activities)
• ensuring that employees are aware of sustainable development issues and that they are
provided with opportunities to develop the competencies and capabilities to meet the
future needs of the organisation and its stakeholders
• monitoring and reporting on our social impact on the community.
Mocha aims to address and improve its environmental performance by:
• conserving energy, water, paper and other resources, whilst providing a comfortable
working environment
• increasing energy efficiency of the office building
• introducing Environmental Management Systems company-wide
• specifying energy, and other products from sustainable sources, and using refurbished
and recycled products and materials where available
• reducing waste through reduction, re-use and recycling; reducing the waste going to
landfill
• reducing water consumption
• reducing business and commuter travel
• ensuring that Mocha office buildings are designed, constructed, refurbished and operated
to improve their environmental performance
• benchmarking performance to measure efficiency against recognised best in industry
practice
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– Policy Issue Date: 01.03.19
Next Policy Review Date: 01.03.20
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