Environmental Initiatives at Siemens Financial Services

The Manchester office is officially plastic free! Following a successful initiative to banish plastic, there is not a plastic cup to be found anywhere in the office. All plastic cups, beakers and cutlery were replaced with environmentally friendly, sustainable alternatives and ceramic mugs introduced to encourage a culture of ‘reuse’ rather than ‘dispose’. 

The simplest of actions can have the biggest effect. After collecting aluminium drinks cans from around our office and canteen, we recently reached the first tonne collected. The money raised from the collection was donated to the Arctic One Foundation and will go into the charity’s grant system to help athletes and athletics clubs. Since 2015, the charity has helped more than 140 para athletes, and clubs and groups from 23 different sports.  

Our industrious environment group has arranged for our building’s gardeners to use waste coffee grounds from The Hub’s coffee machines. Coffee grounds are organic and slowly decompose in the garden, composting valuable nutrients in the soil to maintain quality and fertility. Compost is a mild, natural fertilizer that doesn’t burn plants like chemical fertilizers. The group also plans to  enlist the help of the head gardener to look at composting uncooked vegetables and fruit waste.

A new water machine is being trialled at our Manchester office to help eliminate the need for traditional plastic bottles or tanks of water. Here’s the science: the new machine takes moisture from the atmosphere, condenses it and then filters it to produce purified drinking water. A great example of recycle and reuse.

An ongoing initiative we take part in is a crisp packet collection. The scheme is run by Terracycle – in partnership with Walkers – who place boxes around the office for employees to put their empty crisp packets in. The full box is then taken to a local drop-off point where a financial reward is received and then donated to the Alexander Devine charity. 

Our environment group organises regular litter picks in the local community.