Cut down on your company’s carbon footprint

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How big is your company carbon footprint?

Carbon footprint is calculated by both direct and indirect sources of emissions. Direct emissions include an individual’s actions over a period of time that contribute to the world’s carbon pollution. Indirect sources of emissions include the carbon dioxide that is released into the atmosphere. This is because of manufacturing, transportation, or fuel extraction. The burning of fossil fuels is the main source of human produced carbon dioxide emissions. This is why energy sourced by renewables is the new and revered approach to powering your facilities.

Where to start?

Firstly, you need to identify your company’s material sources of carbon pollution. These include indirect emission sources. These include the fossil fuels that you use to power your facilities. The burning of fossil fuels is the main source of carbon pollution caused by humans. You may think that this is something that can be caused directly, and so you are not a part of it. However, companies have a large part to play. For example, here at WestWon, our lease deals contribute to the burning of fossil fuels. This includes when completing lease agreements for vehicles that are non-electric. Companies need to start working to amend this. This is also why in the COP26 meeting in November 2021, businesses pledged to do more for the environment. Read more about this on our blog on the COP26 meeting.

How to reduce my carbon footprint?

There are several ways that you can reduce your carbon footprint. These include making small or big changes to aspects of your lifestyle, including food, clothing, transport and energy and waste. You could limit and recycle your waste at work or turn down the heating, even if by just 1 degree. Furthermore, you could take public transport and buy from sustainable clothing brands. You could also limit your meat intake, whilst shopping from local businesses, as well as avoiding products with too much plastic packaging. You can also make larger changes such as installing renewable sources of energy. These include wind turbines and solar panels.

WestWon’s new initiative

WestWon has launched our new initiative, the biggest step we have taken yet to help the environment. It will not only reduce our carbon footprint but help to offset parts of our lease deals. This is a major step in the world of leasing. We hope that you and your company will also make the step to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. Join us on our journey and take a look at our WestWon Woodland page now.

Contact Us

If you would like more information on anything seen above, do not hesitate to contact us. A member of our team will be more than happy to assist. Alternatively, you can call us on 01494 611 456 or email [email protected]. You can also see more over on our LinkedIn page.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

From all of us at WestWon we wanted to wish all existing clients a merry Christmas and a happy new year! We hope that you take the time over the holidays to rest and recuperate and spend time with your loved ones. We would like to thank you for all your continued support this year as we have continued to grow and expand, even in such a difficult climate. There are many exciting things to come for us in 2022, which we cannot wait to share with you all! We are also looking forward to greeting a number of new clients in the new year, and continuing to grow come January.

Opening times

We hope you understand that over the festive period, some of our working hours may differ. These times are listed below. You can send us an email or call the office should you need to reach out to one of us outside of these allocated times. We will aim to respond as soon as we can. We pride ourselves on quality service, and this will not change over the holiday season! We’re looking forward to working with new and existing clients in the new year.

Christmas Eve – Open 9am – 3pm

Christmas Day – 28th of December – Closed

29th of December – Open 9am – 5:30pm

30th of December – Open 9am – 5:30pm

31st of December- Open 9am – 3pm

New Year’s Day – 3rd of January – Closed

4th of January – Open 9am – 5:30pm (Normal hours resume)

Contact Us

If you would like more information on what we can offer you and your business then head over to our Contact Us page on our website to speak to a member of our team. Furthermore, if you would like to talk to us about over the festive period during our opening times then please don’t hesitate to call us on 01494 611 456 or email [email protected]. Lastly, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us at WestWon, see you in the new year!

Our green agenda – WestWon Woodland

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WestWon’s green agenda

Here at WestWon we are continuing to cultivate and expand our green agenda and promise to help fight climate change. From today we are launching our new scheme, WestWon Woodland.

We have teamed up with a company called Ecologi. They work with organisations like us to make it easy for businesses to contribute positively to the environment. Our scheme involves planting a tree for every month of a lease deal. Additionally, they provide a carbon offsetting service. This means Ecologi invest money into projects that remove more greenhouse gasses than our business produces. This is done through calculating their customers’ carbon emissions and planting the trees needed to neutralise those emissions. Ecologi will therefore help WestWon on our way to achieve the aim of becoming a carbon neutral company.

When starting our research to become a more sustainable company, we were doubtful as to how trustworthy some companies are. Ensuring that as a business your money is going to the right places, especially when it concerns the environment, is critical. After undertaking extensive research and speaking with their team directly, as a company we fully trust Ecologi. We appreciate their dedication to their transparency as a company. We were impressed by their paper trail of the impact they make up on their website. And we cannot wait to start our journey towards carbon neutrality with them.

Our goals

We have two goals to hit here at WestWon. Within the next five years we will have:

  • planted 100,000 trees in the WestWon Forest
  • reduced 7,500 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere

The benefits

Planting a tree for every month of a lease deal will indubitably create several benefits to the environment. Both around us and beyond. In an article by EarthShare, they provide 10 benefits that planting trees can produce for the economy. These include carbon sequestration, flood control and improvements in clean air. Every 100 trees contribute to around 7.5 tonnes of CO2 being removed from the atmosphere.

WestWon and its employees are becoming more eco-friendly and striving to one day grow into a carbon neutral company. It’s now your turn to do your bit for the environment.

There are a few ways in which we are doing our bit: we have recently implemented recycling bins on each floor of our offices. Meaning that now we are reducing WestWon’s overall general waste output. Additionally, as mentioned in a previous blog, we have been a paperless office for over a decade now. Also listed in this blog are ways in which you and your business can contribute to a healthier environment for us all.

How will it work?

  1. Once you have completed a lease deal with WestWon, you will be sent an email regarding the next steps of the tree planting process, which Ecologi and ourselves take care of.
  2. Once you have been sent an email, it’s time to start planting your trees in the WestWon Woodland. You can also be given updates about your trees, should you wish to receive them.
  3. And it’s as simple as that! We thank you for doing business with us. In doing so, you have helped us on our journey to becoming a business better equipped to helping the environment. We also hope you feel better about doing your bit. We hope you understand what positive impacts it will have on the climate.
  4. As an extra thank you we will be sending out certificates later on in the new year.
  5. On LinkedIn we will also be offering an incentive, so that for each post and tag you do when having received your certificate, we will be planting an extra 10 trees on your behalf!

Contact Us

If you would like more information on our green agenda then head over to our Contact Us page on our website to speak to a member of our team. Furthermore, if you would like to talk to us about getting involved then please call 01494 611 456 or email [email protected].

Deforestation – why is it so harmful?

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What is deforestation?

Deforestation is the process of removing parts of a forest or a large expanse of trees. The forest clearance is then converted to non-forest use land. Either by making it an urbanised area for buildings, or in some cases, making it grazing land for animals such as cows. Both are bad for their own reasons, some of which are covered later in this blog. According to studies, around 31% of the earth’s land surface is covered by forests. It’s imperative that we keep this number the same, if not grow it.

Current news about deforestation

The summit of COP26 is now over.  Here are some of the key outcomes of the conference with regards to deforestation.

The COP26 agreement has been signed by 141 world leaders to stop deforestation by 2030. The pledge led to around £14 billion of private and public funds being promised to help fund the scheme. However, the same pledge was committed to in 2014 and this failed. This is leading many experts to believe that this will end the same way. A portion of the funding will go to developing countries in order to “restore damaged land, tackle wildfires and support indigenous communities” according to a report by the BBC. 28 countries have also pledged to “remove deforestation from the global trade of…agricultural products such as palm oil, soya and cocoa.”

According to ukcop.org, the United Nations state that they are committed to working together to stop and reverse deforestation by 2030. If successful, the restoration of our forests will heavily contribute to the main goal of the conference. That being, to keep the average global temperature increase to well below 2°C- ideally to 1.5°C.

What are the disadvantages?

There are several disadvantages to deforestation. These include larger issues such as carbon dioxide release. This is when the trees that are cut down release all the carbon dioxide they originally stored. It also decreases the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere because there aren’t as many trees available to produce it. Releasing the greenhouse gas such as CO2 can have a damaging impact on the world, as it contributes to global warming. The next disadvantage comes from cutting down the trees to use it for grazing land for animals, like cows. The amount of methane that cows produce is a significant addition to the greenhouse effect. Decreasing the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere and replacing it with methane is a huge negative impact. Other major disadvantages include soil erosion, the destruction of habitats for all wildlife as well as a loss of biological diversity.

What can we do to stop deforestation?

There are several things that we can do as a society and in the workplace to help combat climate change. The first, more obvious way, is to plant more trees. This may seem impossible however there are companies that you can go to to help you do this. Just make sure you do your research first. You can also go paperless. Here at WestWon we have been a paperless office for over a decade, due to our highly advanced CRM system. Other ways to stop deforestation include recycling all products where possible and buying from companies who commit to reduce deforestation. As well as not buying certain harmful products such as palm oil and raising awareness in your community. Also installing LED lights (like we have) can make a significant impact.

WestWon’s new initiative

Here at WestWon we are planning on launching our new initiative on the 15th of December 2021. We will be releasing more information closer to the time. However, we are excited to start our journey and become a positive climate workforce. In the mean time, you can contact us if you would like any further information.

Contact Us

If you would like more information on deforestation or what we are doing to stop this, then please call 01494 611 456 or email [email protected].

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