Wastecycle’s carbon footprint certified by the Carbon Trust

Wastecycle, the Nottingham based waste management company, has become one of the first recycling firms in the country   to be awarded the Carbon Trust Standard certification for its work to reduce the amount of carbon emissions generated by its operations.

“This is an important consideration for us and many of our major clients, including Nottingham City Council, East Midlands Airport and the Universities of Nottingham, Leicester, Loughborough and Nottingham Trent, who are also committed to reducing their carbon footprint,” says Mick Ashall, Wastecycle’s development director.


Wastecycle was awarded the Carbon Trust Standard in 2011 after taking action on climate change by measuring, managing, and reducing its carbon emissions by 27% over the last 3 years, against the regional average of 7.6%  for companies in the East Midlands who have achieved the Standard.  This puts Wastecycle in the top 5%  in the East Midlands region for the size of its carbon reduction in comparison with other Standard Bearer companies.

“We’ve achieved this by continuing our long tradition of recycling more of our waste and reducing our overall landfill tonnage,” says Ashall..  “By following the waste hierarchy  and recycling all we can, recovering materials for use as fuel and minimising landfill, we’ve helped reduce our overall carbon impact; in many cases, we can now offer customers a zero waste to landfill opportunity .

“Over the next two years we also plan to improve measurement standards for the carbon we generate  and continue to introduce techniques that reduce our carbon emissions  This will not be straightforward as once the easy reductions have been made, we have to work harder to put in place measures that will enable further reductions.

“We are changing our lighting systems so that they are controlled by local managers in conjunction with sensors in appropriate areas. We are also  reducing fuel consumption by our vehicles, and planning to implement projects such as rainwater harvesting at our Colwick plant,” says Ashall.

Mick continues, “We plan to improve internal training and external liaison, working with our suppliers and customers to keep generating new ideas.  Local university business students are invited as part of their sustainability module to review our processes at our Colwick office in an attempt to help them implement their degree courses in a practical way ”.

Henry Garthwaite, Head of Business Development, Carbon Trust Certification, said:


“Increased focus on supply chain emissions means that businesses who demonstrate a commitment to measuring, managing and reducing their carbon emissions can better differentiate themselves from competitors, attract new customers and ultimately, grow their business. Wastecycle’s certification communicates to its customers that it is taking responsibility for reducing its own emissions directly, and we congratulate them on their achievement.”

The Carbon Trust Standard is the world’s leading carbon award for organisations measuring, managing and reducing their carbon emissions year-on-year. It was developed by the Carbon Trust in 2007/08 to encourage good practice in carbon measurement, management and reduction by businesses and public sector organisations.  It is designed to provide a robust, objective and consistent methodology for assessing corporate carbon performance.