Client Name: Walworth Garden
Type of Project: Eco-Audit
Location: 206 Manor Place, London
Scope of Eco-Audit
Sustain Quality were instructed to carry out an Eco-Audit for Walworth Garden, a third-sector organisation focused on community gardening and environmental education. The purpose of the project was to outline their current practices and building state and recommend actions to improve their environmental performance.
Furthermore, we developed a tailored Environmental Policy and Sustainable Procurement Plan, Carbon Emissions Report, Biodiversity Value Estimation, Environmental Awareness Presentation, and an Eco-Audit Review as supporting activities.
Following these recommendations, Walworth Garden took important steps to promote sustainability and engage their community, resulting in significant reductions in their carbon emissions and increased engagement with their internal and external stakeholders.
Tools for Implementation
An Eco-Audit was conducted to measure, analyse, and report this organisation’s environmental impact and outline their social impacts. The Eco-Audit purpose is to assess the environmental performance of organisations, highlighting current practices and providing recommendations for improvement.
The process begins by carrying out a site visit where we ask the client on their existing practices and review their building facilities. Thereafter, we prepared a report outlining these impacts with recommendations for improvements.
Impacts are structured thematically in an Eco-Audit Report into the following themes: Policy, Energy, Waste, Water, Health and Wellbeing, and Transport. Within these themes recommendations to reduce these impacts were provided.
We are passionate about a whole-rounded approach and so following the Eco-Audit, we carried out additional supporting activities. Among them is a Carbon Emissions Report, which accounted for Scope 1, Scope 2, and material Scope 3 emissions. Furthermore, we also carried out various supporting activities as outlined above.
Challenges for Task
Collecting data for the defined reporting period proved to be challenging as this process had not yet been explored by Walworth Garden. The result was having data from different periods within the calculations which hindered its accuracy.
According to the organisation, approximately 50% of the energy generated via the onsite solar panels is fed back to the grid. However, there is no indication of how many kWh this equates to and so introduced another degree of inaccuracy.
Solutions to Task
We made estimations to allocate data to the reporting period, utilising additional calculation methods to ensure the most accurate result with the data available.
The electricity produced by the onsite solar panels that are fed back to the grid was disregarded from the carbon emissions calculations. Instead, it integrates into the grid’s overall energy mix, contributing to a reduction in the average emissions factor over time.
Key Project Achievements
Walworth Garden implemented an Environmental Policy, which they shared with staff members and incorporated sustainable procurement and consumption into their strategy document.
Walworth Garden achieved approximately 31.20% in their carbon emissions in 2023/24 compared to the 2022/23 baseline we established for them using the data they provided.
The most significant reduction was in carbon emissions from business travel (Scope 3), achieved through improved engagement, awareness and the promotion of sustainable travel. Followed by a reduction in waste generation, both to recycling and landfill, achieved by engaging with staff and the community to raise awareness.
Furthermore, electricity emissions were reduced considerably due to the energy-saving behaviour now encouraged at Walworth Garden.
Benefits for Clients
The Eco-Audit identified both positive and negative environmental and social impacts and suggested tailored recommendations for improvement. This provided our client with the opportunity to make significant reductions in resource consumption, carbon emissions and costs.
Location
206 Manor Place, London