General

Woodbridge Riverside Trust is a registered charity in Suffolk. The Trust is an enabler for a wide range of creative projects. All activities are planned and run by community volunteers.

Responsibility for the implementation of this policy lies with the Trustees of WRT and they will review this policy annually, in January.

WRT acknowledges the connection between the climate and other environmental crises and the threat of current and future homelessness, disease, food and water shortages and poverty for millions of people around the world, as well as the major damage being caused to our natural eco-systems.

It therefore recognises its responsibility to reduce its carbon and environmental footprints and formally commits itself to being an environmentally responsible charity.

Management

WRT mandates the Chairman to take executive responsibility for taking forward and implementing this commitment and providing an annual report to the Trustees in January each year on environmental matters including measures to manage:

  • Use of electricity
  • Use of water
  • Waste production, including single use plastic
  • Waste disposal, including recycling
  • Office supplies including paper and printer ink
  1. Progress on improvement of WRT’s environmental performance will be a standard item at senior management meetings.
  2. All volunteers/staff will be expected to undertake their duties in ways that help WRT in carrying out its aim of being an environmentally responsible organisation.
  3. Induction procedures for new volunteers/staff will include information on the charity’s environmental practices.
  4. WRT will ask all our current and future suppliers for their environmental policies and for evidence of implementation of such policies and indicate that such performance will be used as criteria for supplier selection.
  5. WRT will seek to have relevant environmental clauses included in any future contracts agreed with outside bodies.
  6. WRT will include environmental responsibility training in any future volunteer/staff training programmes.
  7. WRT will observe existing environmental legislation as a minimum standard and seek to out-perform current legislative requirements where practical.
  8. WRT will develop and maintain a sustainable transport policy for their volunteers/staff, seeking to reduce unnecessary travel and making the transport that is necessary as sustainable as possible.

Policy reviewed February 2020