Environment.

Due to ever-evolving technologies and regulations, maintaining an effective environmental policy is a challenge within our industry, in view of this many businesses either omit this element from their websites or simply post standard processes that sound commercially satisfactory.

At HARTE we genuinely do care about our impact on our environment and are consistently searching for new incentives to improve our overall impact on the planet.

We have a fully comprehensive environmental policy available for review, along with ISO9001, ISO14001, and ISO45001 accreditations, which include our environmental key performance indications, we would however prefer to use this space to provide a more personal insight to our environmental efforts.

Achieving a very high standard of environmental responsibility is challenging within our industry and more so when works are within the busy and restrictive environment of London.

Our key performance indicators for these issues are listed below:

• Waste management and recycling of materials

• Energy efficiency

• Carbon Footprint

• Responsible procurement

Each of the above factors has their own unique challenges which we have detailed below along with an explanation of our efforts to maximise our efficacy.

Waste Management 

Harte is responsible for the management of over 2000 Tons of waste from London per year, this rubbish consists of everything from old furniture, chemical waste, plastics, rubble, glass, timber, and many other items.

Due to the tight restrictions within most of our London sites, separating and managing waste directly from the site is almost impossible to manage and monitor.

This problem has been overcome by forming partnerships with waste removal specialists who provide a service of waste removal, off-site separation, and responsible management of waste, furthermore, each of our sites has a unique reference number which enables these companies to track, manage and record the category of waste and how it has been disposed of. This information is recorded within our contract file and is available on request.

 Energy Efficiency

 Our head office is accredited and fully complies with our ISO 14001 environmental requirements

Carbon Footprint

The largest contributor to carbon footprint within our industry is from the fabrication of materials - Whilst our buying department take great consideration when buying in sundries and supplies, our biggest contribution to this issue is our working relationships with our clients, many of who have gone above and beyond what is currently required.

Recycled materials, locally sourced materials, and responsible procurement have significantly aided our contribution to our overall environmental impact. 

We feel that our businesses biggest contribution to reducing carbon emissions is our direct transportation, these factors include the following elements

• Staff commuting

• PJH Transportation

• Supplier transportation

Commuting

The vast majority of our staff travel to and from work via train, public transport and cycle, we have a limited number of company vans that are driven into work daily, theses vans operate within London and surrounding areas, ensuring plant, tools, equipment, and staff can be moved from site to site as required with minimal impact to London’s traffic and pollution.

In relation to our office staff, we are currently in the process of switching all petroleum cars for electric.

Transportation

Our current and most important contribution to carbon emissions is switching over our existing petroleum-powered transportation vehicles to electric.

Due to the current range of electric vans and limited available home charging facilities (driveways) our staff have, this new change has been a challenge to overcome.

With the above said, we are pleased to confirm that we have purchased a number of electric vans with the intention to operate in London so that we can learn any limitations and discover how they can be overcome, furthermore, we are in talks with various estates in relation to providing a location that we can install our own charging location which can be used for overnight charging, this way the vehicles can be on-site and fully charged the next morning ready for a full day’s work.

The UK’s electrical infrastructure and vehicle battery technologies are rapidly improving, we are optimistic to have a fully electric fleet of vans, within the next 4 years.

Supplier Transportation

Our ordering department is committed to reducing both the distance and frequency of our supplier deliveries by ensuring that we order materials from the closest available suppliers to any project, furthermore, we encourage our site management team to pre-plan and bulk order materials so that the frequency of delivery is reduced to a minimum