Date: 23 June 2009
Saint-Gobain is committed to being green Saint-Gobain Glass has been ranked as one of the UK's greenest businesses in this year's Sunday Times Best Green Companies, for the second successive year.From good housekeeping to its innovative energy-saving designs, Saint-Gobain's commitment to being green is as clear as the glass it makes.
Saint-Gobain Glass's efforts on site range from colour-coded bins to segregate as much waste as possible and maximising the reuse of glass to the use of energy-efficient lights and educating its 191 staff to be green via e-mails, the notice board and intranet.
The firm, based in Eggborough, near Selby in North Yorkshire, pioneered the return of broken glass from customers for use in its furnace, reducing the use of raw materials and gas consumption. Last year it reused 34,000 tons of cullet in addition to its own recycled glass.
The firm's efforts to find ways of reusing or recycling waste across the company has reduced the amount going to landfill by more than 78% since 2001. The company is now looking to recycle 40% of all site waste.
Employee involvement
Uniquely, the Best Green Companies survey takes account of the views of employees – who get to rate their organisation's green credentials – as well as assessing the environmental performance, policies and practices of businesses.
Dr Alan McLenaghan, the managing director and the management team, gets praise from staff for being committed to the environment (a 92% positive green score) and encouraging the workforce to think about energy saving (93%, a score bettered by just three other firms) and they lead by example on environmental issues (86%, a top 10 result).
Employees said the firm's environmental commitments are very serious, giving it a green score of 94%, and the fact that its bonus scheme rewards employees for good environmental performance backs this up. Staff say the company does everything it can to minimise its impact on the environment (89%) and it meets its green targets year on year (81%), no doubt helped in that departments are audited for their performance (84%, a top five score).
Dr Alan McLenaghan said: “We are very proud to have featured so highly in the Sunday Times Green List, especially since it becomes more competitive each year.
“The management team works closely with the staff to ensure the company does all it can to reduce its impact on the environment, and I’m glad that has been recognised by such an influential publication.”
Sunday Times Editor
Richard Caseby, managing editor of The Sunday Times, said: “The top 60 companies in this survey are all pioneers – enterprising, enlightened and fizzing with new ideas. All have a common sense of purpose about their corporate social responsibility.
“There may be plenty of environmental awards but this is the first that has both a robust methodology to measure environmental performance and a survey of each company’s staff to find out whether the green sheen is more than skin-deep.”
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