Following an independent assessment into its practices across the business, Fowler Welch has gained a globally recognised Ecovadis Silver accreditation.
The achievement of a silver award, from previously holding bronze, puts Fowler Welch in the top 30% of all companies assessed, while its environmental score placed it in the top 14% and its sustainable procurement score positions the business in the top 27%.
In recent years, Fowler Welch has implemented an Environmental and Sustainability Plan across the entirety of the business, with the aim of cutting its environmental impact while maximising efficiencies across its operations. The first phase saw an 18% reduction in carbon emissions and has been supported by major blue chip customers including Dairy Crest.
Initiatives highlighted by Ecovadis included Fowler Welch’s provision of transport solutions to customers that emit less carbon, its use of IT tools to optimize route planning and measures taken to reuse or recycle waste.
According to assessors, the overall score was also improved by the introduction of a formal CSR Report (Fowler Welch’s Environmental and Sustainability Report 2018), which was published for the first time last year and documented the initiatives and results that Fowler Welch has taken to improve its CSR and sustainability focus across all areas of the business including fleet and warehouse.
Nick Hay, Fowler Welch CEO said: “To receive this Silver award of recognition for our continued investment and focus on improving the CSR across our business is a real achievement for our team. We are an environmentally-minded business and have taken great steps in recent years to improve our CSR through a number of business-wide initiatives, as well as working with our customers to improve theirs.
“Results have included an MPG increase of 16.3% to 9.75 with an overall carbon reduction of over 18%, a saving of over 10,000 tonnes CO2 per annum, positioning us as a market-leading low carbon transport and storage business.”
Ecovadis provides a benchmark recognised industry-wide for companies to use to help them continually improve their CSR performance. The accreditation assessment itself covers a number of criteria including environment, ethics and sustainable procurement, of which Fowler Welch surpassed the industry average score.
To find out more about how Fowler Welch can achieve results for your business please visit www.fowlerwelch.co.uk or to find out about the Ecovadis benchmark visit: www.ecovadis.com.
