As a company operating in the waste industry, Bartec Municipal are passionate about all things waste and believe the waste industry will play a huge role in the global movement to net zero. The business is not a stranger to sustainable initiatives, with recycling and ethical waste schemes driving sustainability within the sector. Specialising in fleet and route optimising, Bartec Municipal has already made solid progress in its decarbonisation journey by improving customer fleet efficiencies to reduce its environmental impact and save resources.
After understanding its customer needs, Bartec Municipal reached out for external support to meet requirements and spearhead its commitments to stakeholders. We recently sat down with Megan Blackburn, Finance & HR Administrator at Bartec Municipal to find out how our ongoing collaboration has added value to the company’s performance.
The Challenge
Before engaging, a major concern for Bartec Municipal was centred around following through with sustainability commitments. Within the industry, there is often lots of talk about what should be done, and the company wanted to translate this into positive action to take forward steps towards improving its sustainability performance by building momentum.
Engaging in sustainability has a positive correlation with increasing business performance. Yet, a challenge facing Bartec Municipal employees before unlocking this growth involved understanding a starting point on their sustainability journey. To move forward with its commitments, the company needed to plug the knowledge gaps present throughout the business, avoiding confusion and enhancing both customer and employee confidence in Bartec Municipal’s sustainability actions.
The Positive Planet Solution
After understanding its own needs, Bartec Municipal engaged with a range of Positive Planet services to tackle sustainability holistically in the business. Positive Planet’s signature hands-on approach allowed consultants to walk Bartec Municipal employees through the carbon accounting process, sharing knowledge at each stage to increase internal confidence and develop a solid foundation that can continue to be used by the company in its data collection. This has already had a snowball effect, with Bartec Municipal’s keen eye for sustainability encouraging employees to discover more efficiencies in current processes independently.
Bartec Municipal employees also took part in role-specific Net Zero courses and Carbon Literacy training (CLT), a one-day course recognised by the United Nations that breaks down the impact of everyday carbon activities. From the training, and with a solid foundation to build on, the company have been able to bring in environmentally friendly policies to drive its commitments internally, raising awareness among the workforce of the importance of being a sustainable business. These policies have helped boost employee engagement and understanding and have enabled Bartec Municipal to drive positive action on its journey towards net zero.
“Partnering with Positive Planet has enabled us to quantify our emissions and accelerate their reduction as well as offering education and support in a very uncertain landscape. We are excited about the next steps we can take for ourselves and our customers to create a positive impact. We hope to influence and support both our downstream and upstream emissions. For Bartec, our involvement with Positive Planet has been a game changer and we are excited for the future.”
Megan Blackburn, Finance & HR Administrator, Bartec Municipal
The Benefits
Sustainability is a key part of the tender process and Bartec Municipal has used its engagement in sustainability to enhance its tender process performance, improving the company’s score when bidding for contracts and increasing its likelihood of winning new business.
Since the company’s first carbon footprint measurement, it has made significant strides in its carbon reduction initiatives. Bartec Municipal has put several actions in place to reduce its climate impact such as introducing EV charging points at its head office which are free for all employees to use and upgrading all company-owned vehicles to either fully electric or hybrid fuelled, resulting in a reduction of 20.5% in scope 3 emissions from its baseline year. The visibility of the company’s positive progress is now motivating employees to make further changes to continue to drive sustainability success within the company.
Employee engagement training has been a game-changer for Bartec Municipal, too. Taking part in Positive Planet’s Net Zero for Marketers course has encouraged new perspectives amongst the team. The marketing department now possess the confidence to challenge every area of marketing and events within the business. It has also enabled them to ensure they are making the right choices to cut down on unnecessary travel, reduce plastic giveaways, and minimise mailshots to drive sustainability internally. Find out more about our role-specific Net Zero courses here.
Next Steps
To hone in on its ESG piece as a whole, the company is now engaging with a social value organisation to measure its social impact and will look to improve initiatives and workplace environments to lead by example within its industry.
A next step Bartec Municipal is eager to work towards is calculating the positive climate impact it has on its customers through optimising its fleet to begin quantifying emission reductions on behalf of its stakeholders. The organisation is also in the process of rebranding and will make the most of its actions on the new site by dedicating webpages to its sustainability commitments and progress so far.
Bartec Municipal will continue to work with Positive Planet to reduce its environmental impact and the partnership is encouraging innovation internally to drive carbon reductions.
