World Environment Day has been celebrated every year since 1974, always on June 5th. Originally set up by the UN General Assembly the first year focused on “Only One Earth” with each subsequent year having a different focus, this year it’s “Time For Nature”. It offers a global platform for inspiring change, encouraging all aspects of society to think about how they consume and the steps they can take to make a change.
If you’re looking for a storage partner who cares as much about the environment as you do then Archive-Vault are the one for you. This environment day we thought we would highlight all the steps we’ve taken to make sure our solution is as environmentally friendly as possible so you can be sure our ethos matches yours.
First off we do everything we can to make sure our warehouse and office are as low energy as possible. The entire roof of the warehouse is equipped with solar panels which provide all our electricity needs. These power the LED lights in the warehouse all of which are on a motion sensor to ensure no energy is wasted if no one is around. It also means that if we’re working in one area of the warehouse the other lights stay switched off, reducing our energy consumption considerably.
Next to our boxes, all of which are made from 100% recycled materials. This was something we felt really strongly about as (according to Greenpeace) around 4 billion trees are cut down every year to make paper products. Coupled with the 5 litres of water it takes to manufacture just one sheet of paper (according to the World Wildlife Fund) we felt fully recycled boxes were the only option for us. If the contents of the box are due for destruction the whole box is destroyed to ensure security is never compromised, 100% of the shredded paper is recycled so nothing ends up in landfill.
We are very mindful of doing our bit whenever possible to reduce unnecessary waste and therefore reuse plastic wherever we can, it’s a small step but it all adds up. There’s no need for documents to go into plastic prior to being put into storage as we take excellent care of our boxes.
Our vans are another way we do our bit as we always plan routes to include as many drops as possible in one journey. Not only does this save us time but it also reduces our emissions. Both our vans are ‘Euro 6’ spec which helps dramatically decrease emissions emitted. We’re aware that there’s more to do (keep reading for our future plan) but according to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders it would take 50 new cars today to produce the same amount of pollutant emissions as one vehicle built in the 1970s.
Our plan for the future includes buying an electric van to carry out city runs as research has shown they’re significantly better for the environment. Even after taking into account the energy used to produce the vehicle and the generation of the electricity to power them, electric vehicles emit fewer greenhouse gasses and pollutants over their entire lifetime than a traditional petrol or diesel car. We also plan to install solar panels on our latest warehouse which also houses our office, meeting, and staff rooms. The building work is ongoing at the moment but as soon as it’s completed we can move on to installing solar panels and generating our own electricity, exciting!
