The Aster Group, which Testway is part of, has beaten major names and brands such as Marks and Spencer and Astra Zeneca to win at three environmental awards.
We’ve won:
- a Green Apple Award, which is a national award for environmental best practice
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the reporting and accounting category of the national Green Business Awards (Green Globes), a prestigious industry backed award
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the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust Green Awards in the green shoots category
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the Best Green CSR report category of the national Green Awards for creativity in sustainability
And we’ve were shortlisted as finalists in the UKGBC Sustainability Awards for most sustainable housing provider of the year.
Success in these awards was largely linked to the production of our first environmental sustainability review 'Foundations for our Future'and the work involved in calculating the environmental footprints included in the review.
We really tried to push the boundaries as to what we were measuring and how we presented that information, while, at the same time, following international best practice. In fact, we believe we’re the first housing association to follow the international best practice standard the 'Greenhouse Gas Protocol' for reporting carbon footprints.
In addition, we’ve been recognised for the wider work that we’re doing to manage our environmental impact under our Group objective of 'continually improving our environmental performance'.
This all ties up under our developing environmental management system and includes a new policy, strategy, action plan, targets and procedures.
It also includes telling our employees about environmental issues through workshops, team meetings and through our intranet.
