NEWS

Sustainability and Cerberus: Going Green

by | Sep 25, 2020 | Blog Post

It was all the way back in January that I tasked myself with taking responsibility for the environmental impacts of Cerberus Tech and its long-term sustainability. With an academic background in environmental management and business continuity management, I am acutely aware that the challenges thrown up by COVID-19 this year will be dwarfed by what climate change may bring about in the next 10-20 years if action isn’t taken and behaviours aren’t changed now, by everyone. 

As a small company, we could easily slope our shoulders and leave it to larger companies with bigger budgets to address their much larger environmental impacts but, Chris Clarke, our CEO, and I share the view that it is as much our responsibility as it is theirs.

A commitment to sustainability

So back in January, my first green step was to sign us up to the DPP’s Committed to Sustainability programme and complete their assessment questionnaire. This programme was a great place to start because it really helped to put all of our different business operations under the microscope and allowed me to focus in on what we currently do and where improvements could be made. 

After completing the assessment, we scored…drumroll…2 out of 5 – a bit rubbish right? Whilst I was a bit disappointed with that score to start with, the real benefit of joining the Programme is that you come away with a structured set of actions in order to improve your score in the future – that really helped form my to-do list for the months ahead. 

Cue a global pandemic…

As the Head of Operations, there was a fair amount to do as COVID-19 took hold to ensure that our office, staff, business and customer operations could be maintained, however, once we settled into the ‘new normal’ at home, I had a fantastic opportunity, in amongst all the home-schooling and P.E with Joe sessions, to review a lot of our systems, processes and policies – and so I finally got around to addressing my ‘sustainability action plan’ which ultimately led to the drafting, agreeing and implementing version 1 of our Environmental & Sustainability Policy

Writing and publishing this policy is not just a tick box exercise for me, or for Cerberus Tech. I am 100% committed to continuing to improve our environmental credentials through setting and achieving/exceeding target metrics around waste generation and energy consumption, as well as ensuring that sustainability is a key part of our design process when developing ‘future-proof’ solutions for our customers. 

Like many, we still have a way to go but having made a public commitment, we now have a framework and a policy in place to hold ourselves accountable in the name of a more sustainable future.

By Chris Perkiss, Head of Operations