Davies Veterinary Specialists (Davies) is the first veterinary practice to have achieved accreditation from Investors in the Environment (iiE). The Hertfordshire-based referral practice has been awarded Silver accreditation for ‘making an excellent start to implementing an effective environmental management system’ and for ‘positioning itself as a green leader in its sector.’ Davies is now working towards iiE’s top level Green accreditation, with a primary focus on sustainability, and plans to share experience and knowledge by providing ‘Sustainability CPD’ for referring vets.
Investors in the Environment is an external environmental accreditation scheme created to help businesses assess and reduce their environmental impact by implementing an environmental management system. It includes high-level audit criteria being met, and setting reduction targets, followed by an ongoing auditing process.
iiE stated: “Davies have distinguished themselves by undertaking a wide variety of improvements in the first year, from projects with significance to smaller actions that support good sense environmental and economic benefit.”
The Davies Green Group was established in February 2017 by a group of enthusiastic team members from its clinician, nursing, maintenance, reception and kennel assistant teams. Over the past year they have built on previous green initiatives by systematically assessing their activities, establishing a comprehensive environmental policy and action plan and submitting these, with relevant evidence, for audit by iiE. This includes measuring resource use, improving recycling, reducing waste, engaging staff, and as a result reducing the practice’s carbon footprint and financial costs.
Green champion Ellie West, who is an Anaesthetist at Davies, said: “We hope our achievement will have a positive impact on our staff, clients, referring veterinary practices and national bodies, and that we can provide inspiration and support for other practices to follow suit.”
With its new accreditation status in place, Davies hopes to support the UK’s veterinary sector to operate in a more environmentally conscious way, which will encourage the triple bottom line of sustainability; people, planet and profits.
Ellie continued: “We are committed to doing as much as we can to make Davies a more environmentally conscious company and to doing it holistically across the entire business. We will continue to work hard to find new ways to make Davies more sustainable as we work towards our Green level accreditation and we also hope to encourage working parties on sustainability at a national level.”
Davies will be running ‘Sustainability CPD’ in Spring 2019 for referring vets, to share its experiences and knowledge so far.
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