AMCO is proud to announce that it is working towards achieving the Planet Mark Certification. We will measure and reduce our carbon footprint through the Planet Mark Business Certification, ensuring that we embed sustainability into our business practices.
Committing to achieving the Planet Mark Business Certification demonstrates AMCO’s dedication to sustainability. We are excited to reduce our carbon emissions to create a planet that is fit for both us and future generations. Planet Mark will help us work towards measuring our carbon footprint and improving our society and the planet.
What is Planet Mark?
Planet Mark certifies and supports progress in the transition to a net zero world. Since its launch in 2013, Planet Mark has been on a mission to empower change for a brighter future. To do this, they measure what matters. They provide the insight to make informed decisions about when and how organisations will make the transition to net zero.
Additionally, Planet Mark educates and inspires people. They act as a catalyst for behaviour change that immediately reduces carbon emissions and drives cost savings by lowering consumption.
Working towards our Planet Mark Certified Business status further supports our customer’s preference for our brand. It also provides tangible and impartial verification that we are making progress in relentlessly reducing carbon.
Additionally, it demonstrates that we are committed to #DoMoreGood.
By 2050, every UK business must be net-zero by law
Understanding our carbon footprint is the first step in any effective carbon reduction strategy.
By providing a baseline of emissions broken down by the component parts, our carbon footprint helps us to understand where opportunities exist to make immediate and meaningful reductions.
Planet Mark has a decade of experience analysing annual carbon data for hundreds of organisations. Their carbon analysts can also easily identify and recommend areas that we might want to tackle first.
Planet Mark supports AMCO’s journey to net-zero
Planet Mark’s proven process has been designed to accelerate AMCO’s journey to net zero. It will also simultaneously support commercial resilience through stakeholder engagement and growth through favourable brand association and enhanced sustainability perceptions.
Planet Mark’s framework identifies operational inefficiencies and highlights where our strategy should focus to drive the most impact for our business and the planet.
Planet Mark sits at the forefront of legalisation to help us future-proof our organisation. It will enable us to gain independent assurance for our carbon footprint to have credible figures to communicate.
Achieving the Planet Mark Certification will help us to radically reduce our carbon emissions. And it will also create operational efficiencies, helping us towards the global transition to net zero. It will help us to embed a culture of sustainability through CPD-accredited workshops and training aligned with our company goals. Additionally, we will benefit from the enhanced brand association and sustainability perceptions, driving new business opportunities and customer loyalty. We will also be able to increase our bottom line with their support in rooting out operational inefficiencies.
Planet Mark is one of the Partners of the UN-backed “Race to Zero” campaign supporting businesses towards net zero.
Becoming business certified by Planet Mark will provide the perfect platform for commercially resilient and sustainable change. It will do this by measuring and reducing our carbon footprint, year after year. This will engage our staff and stakeholders and support us in communicating our progress with authenticity and confidence.
Our environmental strategy
One of AMCO’s key objectives is to continuously strive for success in all aspects of our business. We recognise that minimising the impact of our operations on the natural environment is of great importance.
We are committed to reducing our environmental impact and continually improving our environmental performance. This is an integral part of our business strategy and operating methods, with regular review points. Our Environmental Strategy aims to aid the transition with a clear timeline for the implementation of green initiatives within our processes.
We have a target to reach net-zero emissions in scopes 1, 2 and 3 by the year 2050.
AMCO is an ISO 14001-certified organisation
Furthermore, we have achieved the ISO 14001 certification which means that we can place ourselves amongst the top sustainable UK warehousing and logistics companies.
ISO 14001 is the international standard for environmental management systems (EMS) and the most widely used EMS in the world, with over 360,000 ISO 14001 certificates issued globally.
Working towards ISO 50001 certification
We also commit to soon achieving the ISO 50001 certification, which provides a practical way to improve energy use, through the development of an energy management system. Active energy management plays a vital role on the path to cost-effective and sustainable energy consumption.
ISO 50001:2018 is a globally recognized and certifiable standard for introducing and maintaining energy management systems.
Our plan for emission reduction
We aim to establish science-based targets for emission reductions, to achieve our targets. We also aim to regularly report emissions to CDP, which is an international not-for-profit charity that operates the leading global disclosure system for businesses to monitor their effect on the environment.
CDP supports cities, companies, and regions worldwide to manage and measure their environmental risk and prospects regarding climate change, carbon emissions, water security and deforestation.
Moving towards 100% renewable energy
Currently, over 40% of our electricity comes from renewable sources. We aim to be 100% reliant on renewable energy, as clean energy plays a vital role in protecting our environment from harmful natural gas.
We are in the process of moving towards renewable energy with the installation of solar panels on our 110,000-square-foot site. To make our building more efficient, presence detection LED lighting has also been added, decreasing unnecessary electricity use and reducing energy consumption by over 50%.
In addition, we will be installing several electric vehicle charging points for staff and visitors, we believe that adequate infrastructure to enable more environmentally conscious alternatives is vital. This will allow access to charging facilities whilst on site – encouraging the use of low/zero emission vehicles.
Plans are also underway to trial HVO fuel in our vehicles soon, which will greatly mitigate emissions from our fleet while transporting goods.
Bike 2 Work scheme
Climate action goes hand in hand with the good health and well-being of our planet and society. We believe bikes and their benefits are for everyone and that’s why AMCO joined the Bike 2 Work scheme, encouraging employees to have all the benefits of this amazing scheme whilst taking more cars off the road.
Cycling has many benefits. From improving health and fitness to increasing energy and positivity. Not to mention reducing environmental pollution.
Selecting green suppliers and customers
At AMCO, we have set a target to set new standards, making sure we only do business with ethical suppliers.
By June 2023 we plan to have developed a supplier code of conduct whereby we select green suppliers and customers who place equal value on environment and sustainability. We will have engaged with our suppliers to produce and demonstrate our code of conduct by August 2023. And by the end of 2023, we will ensure all suppliers are in line with this code of conduct.
Offsetting our carbon emissions
Currently, all our cardboard and plastic packaging from warehouse operations is recycled and all waste produced on site is zero to landfill. Moreover, we are in the process of digitisation to reduce the need for paper in all areas of the business.
Soon, we will be participating in credible offset actions by supporting reforestation, climate protection activities, conservation and purchasing offsets in the form of donations to carbon projects. We will encourage employees to take part in company activities such as tree planting.
We aim to have made considerable efforts in our transition by 2025. All warehouse vehicles will be electric, and we will rely on renewable grid electricity on site. Additionally, we will be integrating water and fuel-saving initiatives by introducing more sustainable systems. This includes fuel-saving heating systems across our sites and water-saving initiatives such as low-flow plumbing and stormwater run-off containment.
Further key objectives for 2025 include sustainable procurement and packaging – eliminating single-use packaging where possible.
As our indirect emissions need to be taken into consideration, we will select green suppliers and customers who place equal value on the environment and sustainability.
Multi-model strategy to reach net zero
We intend to reach net zero for Scope 1 by 2030 (i.e., company facilities and vehicles) and 2 (i.e., purchased electricity, heating, and cooling systems), and by 2050 for Scope 3 (i.e., transportation, distribution, suppliers) emissions.
We will optimise our current multi-model strategy, with additional use of intermodal solutions to reduce demand for long-distance trucking. Six of AMCO’s HGVs have already been fitted with Trailar solar matting. These Solar Mats reduce our vehicle fuel consumption, which reduces our CO2 emissions. This enables us to deliver an environmentally friendly and cost-effective logistics solution.
More sustainable fuels will also be utilised as the infrastructure develops, lowering our CO2 emissions and we also plan to start the transition towards aerodynamically optimised trailers. We aim to have a fully electric fleet by 2030 if the infrastructure in the UK permits, with a final goal of a fully decarbonised supply chain by 2050.
With the support of the entire business, we are working to #domoregood.
We encourage you to contact us if you want further details on our journey or visit www.planetmark.com to learn more. If you are looking for a flexible and sustainable fleet of vehicles to look after your freight forwarding, talk to the UK logistics experts.
We will deliver your goods in time, in full, every time.