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9
NEWS
August/September 2012 www.esb.ie/em
Sustainable Innovation Awards 2012 launched
THE SUSTAINABILITY Team launched its third annual awards scheme at the Sustainable Innovation forum on Thursday June 21st.
The Sustainability Innovation Awards are an annual highlight in the sustainability calendar and, this year, the ambition is to build on the success of 2010 and 2011.
The awards provide the opportunity to showcase the achievement of all entrants – in support of staff engagement and knowledge sharing throughout the business. They are a critical vehicle in ensuring that sustainable working becomes embedded throughout the businesses – part of ‘the way we do things around here’.
This year, the Sustainability Managers took the opportunity to review how the awards were operating and there are some new elements, designed to ensure that the entry and marking processes are keeping pace with what is happening in the company.
The first of these changes relates to the marking scheme. The scheme is being adjusted to give greater weight to the demonstration of innovation in contributing to the achievement of efficiency savings. Marks are available to teams and individuals where they can demonstrate that they have taken the learning of others and applied or adapted them to enhance their own activities are also being increased.
These changes are being introduced to acknowledge that over the course of the Sustainability Programme, the company has built up a considerable understanding and experience of best practice – where this is shared and developed teams are really seeing the value that sustainable innovation can bring to their activities. This is the kind of behaviour that, if adopted, will ensure that ESB can realise its ambition to become an exemplar in sustainable innovation, and deliver real and lasting value into the businesses – hence these amendments to the marking scheme.
This year also there will be a new category - an award for individuals that will recognise where people are acting as sustainable innovation leaders, and inspiring others by their actions. We are all familiar with examples of the individual who consistently goes the extra mile, or acts as a leader in sustainable working and they, by their efforts, have done a great deal to further our agenda. This year we will be recognising those making that extra effort.
There is one other very significant change to this year’s awards. Assessment teams will now use the pool of Sustainable Innovations logged in Sharepoint as the initial entry longlist. There will be no separate application process. The transition to the Sharepoint Log has been very successful, as it acts as a central repository of all the work that is underway, it’s easy to access and use, and it is how performance against the high level EDT target of achieving 10 sustainability innovations for every 100 staff members is being tracked.
The 2012 Awards are another opportunity to showcase the links between sustainable innovation, efficient working and effective resource management.
Each business and team has the opportunity to ensure that they present a strong field of entries, through the Sharepoint Log. Entrants will be selected at the beginning of September, with the announcement of winners following in October.
Speaking at the launch of the awards, John Campion, Executive Director Sustainability and HR said, “Previous winners, Rousch, Pakistan (2011) and Dunmanway, Cork (2010), have lead the way in demonstrating what a positive impact embracing sustainability is having on all aspects of their activities and I am sure that in 2012 we will see more evidence of this from teams throughout the company.”
Head Office Staff commuting patterns changing for the better
A RECENT SURVEY of commuting patterns among Head Office staff has revealed a significant positive shift in the three years since the previous comparable survey was undertaken in 2009.
The results of the recent ESB Employee Travel Survey (Journey to Work) can be compared to a similar travel survey that was conducted in March 2009.
Significant change has been achieved in favour of cycling (up 8 percent), bus use (+5 percentage points), LUAS (up 3 percent) with single occupant driving dropping by 13 percent. This is a very encouraging result for ESB’s sustainability efforts and will significantly reduce our carbon footprint, which previously included an estimated 6,000 tonnes of CO2 from commuting.
The majority of respondents to the survey still travel to work by car (23%), followed by public transport (train/DART 20%; bus 20%), bicycle (18%) and on foot (8%) Informal car-sharing is happening, with 3% of respondents travelling to work as a passenger in someone else’s car. None of the survey respondents work mainly at or from home.
Modes used on the journey from work are broadly similar, as outlined in Figure 2.
What is very encouraging about these results is that the predominant reason for travelling by a particular mode was that it was ‘quickest’ (37%). The fact that this journey type facilitated flexibility also featured strongly (18%). Only 9% s indicated that their choice was based on the fact that this was the cheapest commuting option, so this transition from car use does not seem to be recession driven, but rather the result of a positive cultural change in commuting behaviour.
If you are interested in learning more about how you could ditch the car in your commute to work, you can get more information at the National Transport Authority’s new online National Journey Planner TransportforIreland.ie. It helps people plan journeys, door-to-door, anywhere in Ireland, using public transport. The Planner – with details from 120 public transport operators – covers bus, rail, tram, taxis, ferries and walking routes, with fully mapped-out route information, printable timetables and details of overall journey times all in one place. Following a review of the survey John Campion, Executive Director, Sustainability and Human Resources, said that he was greatly encouraged by the results. “Our ambition has been two-fold, to address the carbon-footprint of our commuting patterns, but also to support people in developing sustainable, healthy and less stressful ways to get to and from work. I am greatly heartened by the progress we are making – this certainly looks like long term change for the better and I want to commend everyone involved. Obviously, in Dublin, we are supported in our efforts by a comprehensive and reliable public transport system, but I know that there is lots happening elsewhere, particularly through the development of site-specific workplace travel plans.”
12,000 apply to take part in The Great Electric Drive
ESB ECARS HAS recruited members of the general public to become ecar ambassadors and trial electric cars for up to a year in an initiative called The Great Electric Drive. A successful advertising campaign ran on TV, radio and online throughout the month of June to promote awareness about the initiative as well as to highlight the growing network of charge points. There was an overwhelming response with more than 12,000 well thought out applications, illustrating the appetite amongst the general public to try out electric motoring.
The selected ecar ambassadors will be announced in August and will drive one of the following electric car models; Nissan LEAF, Mitsubishi iMiEV and a Renault Kangoo Z.E. commercial electric van.
