ONE of the South West’s leading charities has been awarded a top environmental award.

Devon Wildlife Trust, whose main headquarters is in Exeter and bases at Wembury (near Plymouth) and Cookworthy (near Great Torrington), demonstrated its commitment to environmental management recently by becoming the first county wildlife trust to gain the prestigious ISO - international standard accreditation.

Many businesses are committed to reducing their environmental impacts, but few have taken the time and made the investment to gain the coveted ISO14001 award.

Devon Wildlife Trust’s Stuart Hodgkiss was the man given the task to guiding the charity through the vigorous accreditation process. Stuart said: “Getting ISO status meant implementing an Environmental Management System which means we took a long look at every bit of the running of our charity and focussed on minimising the impacts of the activities which cause most environmental harm.”

The process highlighted several areas for improvement; emissions from vehicle use, the amount of fossil fuels used to heat and power the charity’s buildings and the amount of waste it sent to landfill, were all things the process uncovered.

Stuart continued: “We now place a focus on considerate vehicle use, replacing our cars with cleaner vehicles where possible and to promote car sharing and the use of public transport.

"We are also educating our staff on reducing energy use and actively seek alternative energy for our buildings to compliment the hydro turbine and air source heating already employed at some of our offices.

"We also now measure our waste on a monthly basis and set targets for reduction to landfill. We have increased recycling facilities at all sites and our HQ at Cricklepit Mill has become our first 'Zero to Landfill' office, by using Devon County Council's Energy from Waste Facility.”