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Sketch and the Environment

Environmental responsibility underpins Sketch's operating principles and as we grow, we strive to minimise our environmental impact. By July 2009, the implementation of an Environmental Management System (EMS) will have gained us ISO14001 accreditation. This process builds both our environmental and commercial credentials.

Environmental Management Team

Our EMS is not sub-contracted, but has been built and run in-house through our dedicated team headed up by James Cornwell (Environmental Director) and Emma Louise O'Neill (Environmental Manager). The Teamencompasses over 40 employees, all fully committed to our environmental performance. We ensure that all staff are engaged with, and accountable for, our environmental aims. Every employee is trained in environmental awareness and has signed up to a 'Personal Environmental Commitment Agreement '.

Environmental Accreditations (ISO14001)

Our EMS not only meets our own stringent performance levels but was recently certified to  ISO14001   standard. This accreditation was awarded to the Group for demonstrating compliance with applicable regulations and significantly reducing our environmental impact. The Group was officially accredited by VCA www.vca.gov.uk who are certified by UKAS (the UK governing body), ensuring the Group met the actual requirements of ISO14001.

Please see The Fourfront Group's Accredited ISO14001 Certificate.

In addition, Fourfront Group was also placed in the Top 60 of The Sunday Times Best Green Companies awards. These awards set out to identify and celebrate the achievements of British businesses that are striving to improve their environmental performance and use a robust methodology to measure environmental information such as energy spend, waste produced and internal environmental policies, procedures and controls. Through our continued efforts the group intends to build on our ranking within the Top 60.

Carbon Reduction

The reduction of our carbon emissions is our principle aim, we are committed to minimising our emissions and only then offsetting the balance. We are achieving this as our carbon footprint (as a Group) for 2009/10 was 187.5 tonnes which is a 4.75% decrease on 2008/09 (please see Fourfront Group Carbon Footprint Statement 2009/10). Our ongoing commitment is to reduce our carbon footprint per capita by a minimum of 5% year.

Carbon Negative

We offset the balance of the carbon emissions we cannot avoid by doing something positive for the environment. We do this by working with the UK based environmental charity Moor Trees. Established in 1999, Moor Trees creates and restores native woodland for biodiversity benefit and for climate change mitigation. We support their tree planting, which produces not only tangible environmental benefits, but also social ones through their working with hundreds of volunteers of all ages and abilities each year.

More recently, we have formed a new partnership with Trees for Cities, a London based independent charity working with local communities on tree planting and regeneration projects in urban areas. The new partnership has already started developing a voluntary project in London that the Fourfront Group will continually develop and manage over the next few years.

2009/10’s carbon footprint (187.5 tonnes) will be offset through Moor Trees planting and managing 750 trees (Fourfront Group Carbon Offset Certificate 2010/11).  We offset a further 10% to ensure the Group is Carbon Negative, and better still, we actually plant the trees we use for offsetting ourselves at the Fourfront annual planting weekend.  

Supply Chain

The environmental sustainability of our supply chain is very important to us, as environmentally responsible suppliers benefit our business and our clients' business.

Our major environmental impact is 'waste to landfill' so we vet and monitor our sub-contractors to ensure their own environmental standards. In continuously improving our environmental performance we felt we could do something extra to improve their green credentials. So, we offered them a training course to bring them first BS8555 and then ISO14001 standard. This enabled them to set up their own EMS.

Voluntary Schemes

We believe in getting our hands dirty to achieve our environmental aims and have partnered with the Forestry Commission to develop a conservation volunteering scheme. Employees are invited to spend time conservation volunteering at Alice Holts Forest in Surrey. For more information please see The Fourfront Group Teams up with the Forestry Commission.

Through our partnership with Moor Trees  we have developed a programme which allows our employees to travel to Dartmoor and plant our trees. This is scheduled for November 2009.


For any questions about Sketch's environmental credentials please contact Emma Louise O'Neill on eloneill@fourfrontgroup.co.uk or Tel: 0207 647 5200.