Colleagues at UM Group’s head office in London took part in the company’s latest Green Day.

The morning started with a presentation by UM administrator Louisa Brown covering four areas – recycling in the business, improvements on energy in the office, e-waste and how it impacts the environment and an update on the flourishing green space at UM’s Portbury terminal.

Louisa began by giving an overview of The Separation of Waste (England) Regulations 2025, which came into force in March last year. The legislation requires all organisations with 10 or more full-time employees to separate their recycling and food waste from their general waste.

In addition to encouraging a greater understanding of how all colleagues can help with recycling, UM Group also has an ESG committee to tackle the issues and challenges that come with trying to achieve the Government’s ambition for Net Zero.

Louisa explained how recycling is a simple but powerful action with wide-reaching benefits that all colleagues can contribute to whether at head office or at terminal sites.

One exciting initiative to reduce energy usage in the London office is the recent installation of a zip tap, moving away from the use of free-standing water coolers. This has resulted in an immediate reduction in energy usage by saving plastic, electricity and petrol on vehicle delivery.

The initiative will save an average of 2.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year and, as Louisa explained, the saving is the equivalent of 15 flights between London City Airport and Belfast City Airport.

The presentation went on to cover the topic of e-waste and the impact each colleague can have by regularly emptying their email inboxes and reducing the volume of emails sent, in particular those with large files. An average year of emailing daily is equivalent to driving a petrol car 200 miles.

Louisa finished the presentation by updating colleagues on the success of the garden at the company’s Portbury terminal, showing the ongoing transformation of the half-acre green space, sharing photos contrasting the garden’s appearance in Spring with recent images taken in Summer.

Thanks to the support of the Woodland Trust, UM has planted hundreds of trees and plants including Spanish Broom, Common Dogwood, European Mountain Ash, Common Hawthorn, Sea-buckthorn and Wild Cowslip flowers.

Meanwhile, the Richard Davis Memorial Pond, named in memory of the former Portbury site controller who died last year and was responsible for planting the cherry trees 30 years ago, is also going from strength to strength, as is a vegetable plot, tended by colleague David Richards, which includes strawberry plants, onions, lettuce, tomatoes and chilli peppers.

Following the morning presentation, several colleagues visited nearby Borough Market where there was an opportunity to stop off at Raya, a South-East Asian grocery store which prides itself on sourcing all of the products it sells with care.

Of particular interest to the team was the sugar cane, which UM trades, and which colleagues enjoyed watching being juiced before trying this delicious drink. They made a point of bringing some of the drinks back to the office for other colleagues to try.

Louisa said: “It was a fun way to end the morning session. The aim of the presentation was to celebrate some of the good things we are doing to enhance our recycling and energy usage processes and remind colleagues that everyone can do their bit by sticking to some good habits.

“We plan to run further Green Days around our UK sites and at our London office.”