Electric Corby wins Green Award for environmental achievements

Electric Corby CIC has been given a prestigious award for its environmental work over the past year. Staff attended the annual Investors in the Environment (iiE) awards ceremony on 2nd February 2016, where the organisation received a Green Star award for achieving the top level Green accreditation.

At the annual iiE Awards member businesses secured Bronze, Silver or the highest level of Green accreditation, plus they discovered who won further awards – such as the ‘Great Green Star’, ‘Best Green Champion’ and the ‘Overall Outstanding Achievement Award’.

Measures taken by Electric Corby CIC include; recycling of their office waste, composting food waste, and encouraging staff to use electric vehicles through a staff promotion with a Nissan Leaf, whilst using the onsite electric vehicle charging point.

Last year Electric Corby reduced their office carbon foot print by 55% (on the baseline year of 2014 from 6714 kg CO2e to 2089 prorated for staff). As part of a EU funded project called District of the Future project Electric Corby have installed energy monitoring equipment in the Corby Enterprise Centre with the objective to understand how the Centre can reduce electricity consumption as part of the project that aims high, to demonstrate how to cut consumption by 30%.

The innovative not for profit Community Interest Company is now nearly 4 years old and over the last 12 months has:

1. Supported 300+ Corby businesses through Growing Corby and CleanTech programmes, of which 120 businesses secured grants of up to £5,000
2. Built and sold 8 energy efficient homes that are testing the effectiveness of better insulation and roof mounted PVT to generate electricity. These are being monitored against 2 “standard” houses to evaluate their performance. , Installed 23 electric vehicle charging points over 14 locations, with over a 1000 charges this past year. Helped the local authority, Corby Borough Council have increase their green fleet from 0 to 20% of electric vehicles, as a direct result.
3. Following a vigorous audit, EC reached their ‘iiE Green Accreditation’, and reduced their operational CO2e by 55%.

Nick Bolton, Co Founder of Electric Corby explains: “Whilst what we do is to ultimately achieve a more sustainable Corby, we also walk the talk and commit to be being as green as we can in the way we operate day to day. As an organisation we are committed to delivering a greener, sustainable future for the people of Corby. Whilst delivering these exciting projects, we ensure our own operations have the minimum negative effect on the environment’’

There are now over 250 members and 3,500 businesses signed up to the iiE green network, covering over 17 different regions across the UK. This not-for-profit environmental accreditation scheme can help businesses make savings whilst reducing their impact on the environment.

“Our vision is to make sustainable practices the norm and to create a better standard of smarter businesses across the UK,” says Kim Coley, Commercial Executive at iiE. “We aim to make our iiE brand and Green accreditation badges instantly recognisable and nationally significant to businesses and customers across the UK.”

The not-for-profit iiE scheme is unique because businesses must achieve a minimum 2% improvement in resource efficiency over an agreed baseline figure to secure green accreditation. Other essential criteria include having a recycling system in place, adopting a travel plan, calculating carbon footprint and setting targets for carbon reduction.

The supporting membership around this accreditation scheme gives businesses the support they need, as well as helping businesses promote their best practice and successes along the way. By businesses ultimately putting together a credible Environmental Management System (EMS), the scheme also allows businesses to keep ahead of emerging environmental legislation, involves staff in securing operational efficiencies, and raises their corporate profile.

For more information on the iiE award visit the Investors in Environment website.