Our ranking in the Business in the Environment Index, 22 places higher than last year with an overall score of 89% against 83% the year before
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Managing impacts
Camelot does not have a big impact on the environment, but we aim to be a good corporate citizen and know we can make our operations cleaner and more efficient if we control the environmental effects we have. As such, we have a responsibility to manage our impact on the environment carefully.
Public debate about the environment in general, and climate change in particular, is growing. Increasingly, we all need to do more at work and home to conserve resources and cut pollution.
We have some clear priorities in this area and we are taking steps to improve our performance. We want to use energy and resources as efficiently as possible by consuming less and recycling more. We are working to cut CO2 emissions, primarily through using more renewable energy, and we are investing in other renewable schemes to offset our emissions. We are also helping employees understand how they can save energy, recycle and cut down on waste.
Improvements in the way we manage our impact were recognised during the year when we were ranked considerably higher in the Business in the Environment Index. We were put at 56th, 22 places higher than last year, with an overall score of 89% against 83% the year before and we are now also sector leaders. This movement in position is largely because of our Green Team and our supplier assessment programme.
How we have an effect on the environment
Our operations are mainly office–based in towns and cities, but our sales team service over 26,000 retailers around the country and need to travel widely. Our main impacts on the environment come from the use of paper and transport. It takes a lot of energy, paper, water and ink to produce play slips, Scratchcards and draw–based lottery tickets. Distributing our products to retailers has a clear impact too.
Running our headquarters in Watford and our other offices around the UK has another significant impact, with heating, lighting, air–conditioning and IT making a large contribution to our overall energy use. Office paper use, waste and recycling are other issues we have considered.
We comply with all national laws and were not fined for breaking any environmental regulations in 2005/06.
Our environmental policy
Our environmental policy (DOC 40kb) describes how we are going about reducing our impact. It commits us to:
- Identifying and managing impacts
- Measuring our performance using indicators and targets
- Involving employees
- Consulting with stakeholders on environmental issues.
Environmental Management System
In response to direct feedback from our stakeholders we committed ourselves to introducing an Environmental Management System (EMS), based on the international standard ISO14001. We made a start in setting up an EMS. This included:
- Training 15 employees in our Northampton warehouse
- Assessing our environmental impact against legal requirements
- Identifying our environmental aspects and impacts
- Setting up recycling facilities in Northampton.
Work on the EMS has since been put on hold due to the introduction of a new company–wide software system and because of bidding for the third National Lottery licence (see Chief Executive's review) began earlier than expected. As a result, our target to establish an EMS during the year was not achieved, but we plan to continue implementing it in Northampton in 2006/07.