At encelia we take our environmental responsibilities seriously and to help meet those responsibilities we have developed our Green Pledge.

Our Green Pledge states that:

we will always strive to minimise the carbon footprint generated in the course of carrying out our business, we will actively measure the carbon emissions of our projects and the work carried out on behalf of our members and will offset that footprint using a reputable carbon offset company.

In order to meet our pledge we will:

1. Implement a Carbon offset program
2. Where and whenever possible, we will follow the three Rs of Recycle, Reduce and Reuse

Carbon Offset Program

We use the following to calculate the carbon footprint for each Encelia member:

• the time a project is in development
• the time spent on maintenance/marketing of member sites
• site size*
• monthly bandwidth*
• any travel made by encelia directly related to the member, for example, consultancy meetings

*where a site is hosted with us

Using these results a contribution is made to a carbon offset company based on their costs for the size of the footprint identified. Members will have access to their own offset figures with details on any payments made by Encelia on their behalf to the carbon offset company. For non-members this information will be available on a per project basis on completion of the project.

The Three R's

encelia is working towards zero waste through the implementation of the three R's.

Reduce

By being based at the Moseley Exchange, encelia is able to reduce its carbon overheads. Moseley Exchange is a coworking space that provides an environment where resources such as heating and lighting are shared by a number of small businesses helping to reduce the overheads on an individual basis. We also reduce the amount of paper we use by making all reports available to our members online. Non-members receive softcopy reports via email. Where hardcopy reports are required we ALWAYS produce two sided copies on paper from renewable sources. Where available software is purchased as a download and not in CD format. We do not carry out blanket leaflet drops and avoid the use of business cards as much as possible.

Reuse

As part of our reuse policy we aim to always:

• Refill toner and ink-jet cartridges.
• Use waste paper as notepaper.
• Use durable cups, mugs, glasses and cutlery rather than disposable alternatives.
• Reuse envelopes
• Where hardware is no longer suitable for its original purpose and is not a suitable candidate for upgrade that hardware will be used in an alternative role. For example, older computers no longer suitable for design work may be used for admin

Recycle

At encelia we ensure that all materials and hardware used in the course of our business are, where possible, recycled. This ranges from having identified recycling bins for waste to rehoming hardware when it is no longer required. A number of decommissioned computers have already been given to those who can use them and this will continue in the future. Furthermore all printed materials are on recycled paper including our letterheads and business cards.