Verco celebrates Earth Day
Today is the 52nd anniversary of Earth Day. To acknowledge this worldwide event organised by EARTHDAY.ORG, the Verco CSR team have organised a series of initiatives.
The theme this year is #InvestInOurPlanet with a focus on what individuals and organisations can do to take action against the climate crisis.
Earth Day - Invest in our planet
Our vision is to provide the solutions for a zero carbon world and we help businesses to reduce their environmental impact. We are proud to have worked with some of the biggest names, across a wide range of sectors. We have chosen to take part in Earth Day this year with a series of initiatives designed to invest in our local communities. Each initiative has two parts, part one is to reduce the problem, part two is to restore balance.
Community landscape
At lunchtime on Earth Day, we are doing a company-wide litter pick, staff who live near each other are getting together in their local areas, others are meeting at our offices, while those working from home are focussing on their own neighbourhoods. We cover multiple UK regions with our different locations and are excited about the impact we will be able to make in our local areas and across the UK. We have registered 2 private events with Earth Day for litter picks on the cycle path from Bristol - Bath, and Beechen Cliff Wood, at 12pm on the 22nd April, which is part of the #GreatGlobalCleanup.
View Verco on the Clean up Map
Verco have provided insect friendly wildflower seeds for staff to sow in natural areas or in their own gardens after the litter picking to encourage biodiversity in their communities.
Verco has also contributed to the Canopy Project which works with global partners to reforest areas in dire need of rehabilitation, including areas with some of the world’s communities most at-risk from climate change and environmental degradation. Since 2010, EARTHDAY.ORG™ has planted tens of millions of trees with The Canopy Project, today we donated tree's to help combat deforestation and help to build a greener and more sustainable community.
Food
As part of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, the UK Government has committed to halving the UK’s per capita food waste by 2030. In 2018, the UK produced around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste (1). The majority of this is from households, so we have made household food reduction a focus theme for Earth Day. We have created a sharing platform for all Verco staff to share tips for reducing food waste, including recipe ideas for any leftover ingredients.
Despite the volume of food being thrown away, in the UK, more than 14 million people are living in poverty – including 4.5 million children (2). We have been encouraging staff to bring food items to offices so that we can make donations to our local Trussel trust food banks.
Reflection for action
Verco is a team of passionate experts, committed to tackling the challenges of climate change. This extends to our personal lives as well as our working ones.
We have been sharing ideas and actions that we are taking at home and have found this to be a useful and inspiring way to get new ideas to ‘do our bit’. Watch this space to find out about our best ideas, which might inspire you too!