Woods Foodservice, London’s premier foodservice company, has received CarbonNeutral® certification following a long-standing commitment to reducing the environmental impact of its business.
CarbonNeutral® certification is awarded to companies who have reduced their carbon footprint to zero using a combination of in-house efficiency measures, renewable energy, and external emissions reductions.
Woods has always been conscious of its carbon footprint and has been working towards this target for a number of years, introducing eco-friendly practices wherever possible to minimise emissions.
Among the various ‘green’ initiatives in place is the Woods warehouse, a state-of-the-art, fully insulated facility in Uxbridge which uses energy efficient heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. The use of renewable technologies such as PVs and solar water heating and water harvesting systems.
The large delivery fleet uses highly efficient eutectic plate technology and are euro 6 rated. In addition, all of the company cars are fully electric.
Schemes such as car share, ride to work, working at home for staff and used vegetable oil, cardboard and plastic collection from our customers to recycle along with all excess cardboard and plastic already generated in-house have also been implemented.
Despite all of these efforts, Woods recently instructed the Carbon Trust to carry out a full audit and provide an Energy Saving Opportunities Report to further improve energy efficiencies.
As a result of the report new LED lighting has been fitted throughout the premises and a full internal energy policy stating short and long-term energy commitments have been agreed and a Compliance Manager recruited to oversee the policy.
Now that Woods has reduced its emissions to the lowest amount possible with the technologies currently available, the small amount of remaining carbon that is produced is being offset. This is being achieved by working in partnership with Natural Capital to support a scheme to purchaseenvironmentally friendly “Bondhu Chulha” cookstoves for the people of Bangladesh where only 18% have access to clean fuels and equipment for cooking, and more than 32,000 children and 14,000 adults die every year as a direct result of indoor air pollution.
Woods is committed to continually updating and improving technologies when possible to reduce its internal carbon emissions further still and to increase investment externally in environmentally friendly schemes world-wide.
Darren Labbett, Managing Director for Woods Foodservice, said: “We have always been environmentally minded at Woods because we believe it’s the right thing to do, and as it’s become more and more important for our customers and their diners, becoming carbon neutral was the natural next step. We are thrilled to have the certification.
“Our customers can now rest assured that when they buy from us they are making an environmentally conscious decision and minimising their own environmental impact, which is fantastic.”
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