Environmental Policy
1. Purpose
The purpose of this environmental policy is to demonstrate our organisational commitment to addressing environmental issues across Sunny Kids Shine® and in the services we deliver. This document outlines wohat Sunny Kids Shine® will do t assess our environmental impact, how we will adapt to reduce it, and the responsibilities of team members in this space.
2. Action
Sunny Kids Shine® is committed to accelerating a just transition to net zero and to reducing the environmental impact of our operations and service delivery. We will address this through the following areas of work:
3. Staff Engagement
Sunny Kids Shine® will:
- Be familiar with all the environmental requirements relevant to their role and responsibilities, including exploring the carbon footprint/environmental impact of specific areas of work.
- Take responsibility for your own environmental impact, whether in the workplace or working from home, and share ideas with other staff members on how to reduce your personal impact.
4. Operations
Our mission is to work together for a brighter future, and the sustainability of our services is important for the people, places and communities we work with.
As part of delivering our mission in line with our values and charitable objectives, we will assess the environmental impacts of our operations and regularly review our objectives to reduce our internal carbon emissions. This work will include:
- Monitoring utilities consumption in office buildings and home working, including communicating and sharing resources and information predominantly via email, screen sharing and screen saving where possible to reduce the need for printing.
- We will carefully consider the travel required for our services to proceed, providing remote support where possible and encouraging green transportation when in-person support is necessary. Where travelling by car is essential, we use Electric vehicles, which generally emit 3 to 4 times less carbon over their lifespans than petrol or diesel cars.
- Review our waste and educate staff on effective recycling and on reducing single-use plastic use where possible.
- Communicate with the communities we work with about climate breakdown and its relevance to our mission, vision, and values.
- Increase communications about the climate crisis to encourage awareness within our networks and the communities we work with.
- Comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulations.
5. Governance
Our director is responsible for Sunny Kids Shine® and its strategy. We commit to exploring the impact climate breakdown has or will have on the communities, people, and places we work with.
6. Suppliers and procurement
The suppliers of Sunny Kids Shine® will:
- Share environmental policies or describe planned actions if a formal policy is not in place when entering into any contract or agreement with Sunny Kids Shine®.
- Work with us to reduce the impacts of the goods and services purchased from them wherever possible.
We recognise that although we may not be able to reject suppliers based solely on their sustainability credentials, asking questions raises the profile of this issue, and that we may partly influence behaviours through this action alone. Our engagement with suppliers is designed to identify suppliers whose values align with ours, and we will make public our preference to work with organisations that minimise their environmental impact wherever possible.