Sustainability

We created a Sustainability Plan in January 2021. This is a working document that all the team have access to and covers the following areas:

• Reduction, re-use and recycling of resources.
• Product procurement.
• Carbon and anaesthetic gas emissions.
• Water usage.
• Biodiversity.

We had a number of initiatives already in place when we created the plan:

We had a number of things already in place:

• Switching to a greener electricity tariff, and to more efficient LED lighting.
• Recycling paper, tins, plastic, card, glass and batteries.
• Moving towards paperless e.g. electronic receipts, lab results, pet reminders and insurance claims.
• Making use of the ‘cycle to work’ scheme.
• Learning how to help bees via the British Bee Veterinary Association.
• Using refills, for e.g. hand soap, washing up liquid.
• Re-using towels, newspaper and blankets in our kennels area.
• Using paper dispensing bags and carrier bags, rather than plastic.
• Using reusable, fabric scrub hats.
• Use of low flow anaesthesia.

In 2021-2022 we focused on the following areas:

• Reducing waste -> unsubscribing from unwanted postal magazines/journals/promotions. Requesting electronic invoices from any companies still posting. Re-usable coffee cups purchased for the staff room, for when colleagues purchase take-out coffee.
• Increasing recycling -> recycling bin added to ‘patient prep/kennels’ area. Reminder to the team of what can be recycled.
• Reviewed suppliers of stationary, cleaning and catering products. Most paper products were already recycled or FSC approved. Some substitutions made e.g. black bin bags replaced with ‘The Green Sack’ company (made from recycled farm waste plastic), zero-plastic Sellotape.
• We also replaced our old gas boiler at Torquay, to a more efficient condensing one.
• Switching supplier for patient nutraceuticals to one using less plastic packaging.
• 2021 was the last year we sent out Christmas cards, since 2022 we have made a £200 donation to charity instead. We will continue to send sympathy cards, and have chosen a supplier who uses recycled paper, card and packaging.
• We have limited options for planting flowers for pollinators at our sites.  Many of us have bee hotels in our gardens and we will provide a bee hotel and bee-friendly seeds to any of our employees who want them.
• Participation in the Antibiotic Amnesty since 2022.

Carbon audit

In 2023 we completed a carbon audit with Vet Sustain.  Our 2022 footprint was 16.47 Tonnes CO2e. Surprisingly for us, over 6 tonnes of this was down to anaesthetic gas usage! Our 2023 footprint was 15.18 Tonnes CO2e. The reduction was mainly due to a reduction in anaesthetic gas usage – although we actually did more anaesthetics in 2023, we have modified our anaesthetic protocols and equipment to reduce gas usage e.g. utilising more local anaesthetic techniques.  It was great to see these efforts had an impact on the results.

While not a perfect solution we do ‘offset’ our emissions, supporting projects in the Amazon rainforest. Many thanks to Eco Offset Ltd for their guidance on this. While reducing emissions where possible is key, auditing and offsetting what we can’t reduce is, we feel, a positive step.

We also  audit our waste production. Much of our waste is classed as ‘clinical waste’, which has to be incinerated for health and safety reasons. However, of our general waste, we are pleased to report that in 2023 we managed to shift the balance in favour of recycling and now send more for recycling than to general landfill. This has been achieved through team education and increasing the availability of recycling bins throughout the surgeries.