Background and requirements
Lumanity is a leading global healthcare consultancy with branches across the globe. The team working from the company offices in Shoreditch, London have been dedicated to adapting their working practices and are continually evolving to become as sustainable and as environmentally friendly as possible.
In 2021, in a move that is becoming more and more commonplace, one of the team’s key clients made a contractual requirement that to continue as a supplier, the office had to achieve the internationally recognised ISO 140001 accreditation. Once awarded, this certification proves that supply chains are demonstrating leadership and commitment to an effective environmental management system.
Green Ethos
The employees based at the Lumanity office in Shoreditch are environmentally conscious, young, reactive and dynamic, led by a team that was already engaged with many in-house environmental initiatives. Rather than looking at sustainability as simply a ‘box ticking’ exercise, the management understood the deep value to staff, stakeholders and customers of being an environmentally aware business.
With an already established annual company ‘Green Week’, active monitoring of the company’s carbon footprint and a system to offset the carbon expended; Lumanity in Shoreditch had already made great strides in improving its environmental impact but needed ISO 14001 to certify, structure and demonstrate its efforts.
ISO 14001 – Gap Analysis
ISO 14001 is a sought-after accreditation that is internationally recognised. Rather than instructing what to do, the accreditation provides a framework that allows a company to manage its own environmental impacts and identifies actions that businesses need to take from a legal and sustainable perspective.
To start the accreditation process, Lumanity’ Shoreditch office requested a visit from the ISO body to carry out a gap analysis. This thorough analysis identified that whilst the company had implemented several green initiatives, they hadn’t met the requirements of ISO 14001. To meet the supplier’s deadlines, the office was then given a six-month deadline to create and implement the required procedures and environmental systems to meet the ISO 14001 standard.
Enter Spring Environmental
Having identified the environmental strategy ‘gaps’ that needed addressing, and with the six-month time pressure placed upon the company, Lumanity in Shoreditch brought Spring Environmental onboard to help with the process.
Spring Environmental developed a bespoke, light-weight environmental system for the office that reflected the character and competencies of the team and, most importantly, integrated it into already established processes to minimise the workload.
Working very closely with the Lumanity team, Spring provided huge amounts of support, knowledge and practical help across the whole company. Some of the activities included:
- setting objectives and delivering cross-department environmental training
- identifying gaps in the sustainable systems already in place and closing them
- training the key people who would be managing the system
- exploring use of business travel and setting objectives and goals to reduce it
- ensuring all the legal requirements had been managed
- improving communication across all teams during decision making process that could have an impact on the carbon footprint of the company.
ISO14001 – The Audit
After working with Spring Environmental for six months, the ISO body audited Lumanity’s Shoreditch office and the branch achieved the ISO 14001 accreditation in the most comprehensive way possible – with no major, no minor, no non-conforming and no opportunities for improvement recommended by the official organisation.
The Future
To retain the ISO 14001 accreditation, companies are required to have an external surveillance audit every six to twelve months and, in the meantime, the company should be performing regular internal audits to check that the system is working and continuing to deliver the environmental benefits and objectives.
Spring Environmental developed an audit program for the office and based on the partnership’s success, Lumanity in Shoreditch will be retaining Spring’s support to manage the internal audits for the rest of the year.
Testimonial
Lorna Kirman, Client Services Director and Head of Sustainability at Lumanity said, “We needed a reliable, knowledgeable environmental consultancy that could come into our organisation, quickly understand the requirements, and put the necessary systems in place within six months. We knew that this would be a tough task but having been introduced to Spring Environmental by our sister company Signal, we had every confidence in Chris and his team. We were not disappointed. Spring’s expertise in ISO accreditations is excellent and they worked alongside our team efficiently, offering friendly guidance and putting in place a system that doesn’t feel too onerous. We are delighted to have achieved the ISO 14001 accreditation to certify that we have a structured framework to continually reduce our environmental impact.”