Green and White City

How do we know? Because the BBC has joined the small but growing band of major corporates seeking to create greater transparency in their management of environmental issues. To this end, it has just published its first environmental report, detailing everything from current energy consumption across the corporation to its implementation of the 'Considerate Constructors' scheme at all its sites.

Of course, reports that detail the corporate citizenship policies of organisations, are not new. Ethical reporting by companies began in the nineties when non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and pressure groups, such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International, began exposing the ethical and environmental shortcomings of multinational organisations.

But what is new is that now the trend is spreading to firms outside the high risk industries such as oil and chemicals.

The factors driving this development include the introduction of the Climate Change Levy (the tax on the industrial and commercial consumption of energy) and the formation of FTSE4Good (the new ethical stock market index). When FTSE4Good was launched in July, companies including Tesco and Safeway were automatically excluded because they had not published environmental reports.

The trend for greater accountability is filtering through to non-manufacturing companies as it becomes obvious green issues are not limited to the production activities of an organisation. It is here that the facilities manager has a significant role to play. How a company manages its built environment in terms of energy conservation and recycling, for example, is of considerable interest to employees and customers.

Andrew Fullerton, head of environmental planning at the BBC, says that while the broadcaster doesn't figure on any pressure group hit list, it hasn't been as open in its affairs as it could have been.

'Traditionally the BBC's attitude has been 'judge us on the quality of our programmes' — which has led to accusations of being insular,' says Fullerton. 'But we are in a much more competitive environment now and there is an increasing demand for information coming from all kinds of organisations tapping into our website.'

Although the BBC is a public service organisation with no shareholders to worry about, Fullerton says the BBC report, Environment Matters, has been produced against a wider agenda of corporate social reporting, which includes the formation of the FTSE4Good index.

'The BBC is a publicly-funded broadcaster, accountable to licence fee payers,' he says. Fullerton adds that licence fee payers have a right to expect that the BBC is not being wasteful with their money.

The BBC has considerable means at its disposal. Revenue includes £2.4bn generated each year in licence fees, as well as £205m generated from BBC World Service income. The broadcaster operates out of 522 locations in the UK and employs 24,000 staff.

As a programme producer, the BBC may not be a pressure group target, but it does consume large amounts of energy, create significant waste and use large amounts of natural resources. Last year the broadcaster used enough water to fill 700 Olympic swimming pools, released 109,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), and generated 4,600 tonnes of waste from lamps and batteries to aluminium film cans.

At Television Centre, the BBC's environmental vision is being led by its executive committee, headed by Jenny Abramsky, director of radio and music. Below this is a steering group, supported by five working groups — property, utilities, transport and travel, waste, and supply chain and procurement. Environmental manager Mariam Ali is responsible for the delivery of the policy and providing professional environmental advice.

Each environmental group sets targets, collects performance information and implements projects. The information will help the BBC to develop strategies across the organisation and to report next year in more detail on these projects.

Aspirational
Fullerton, who heads the environmental property group, says members meet up once a month to share local initiatives and best practice. 'BBC staff are very environmentally aware,' he says. 'In the first hour Environment Matters went out on the website, there were 1,000 hits.'

However, Fullerton admits the current BBC environmental report is largely aspirational, containing more anecdotes than BBC-wide measured impacts. The intention is to develop and present environmental data and targets in a co-ordinated way in the future.

A key project for the environmental property group is the BBC's new White City development and the refurbishment at Television Centre. The White City project, to be completed in phases, will comprise eight buildings over 3,500 sq ft, accommodating more than 6,000 staff.

Approval has been given for a broadcasting centre, a production office and an energy centre that will serve all eight buildings to reduce power consumption.

These first three buildings will be in service by late 2003, while future phases will be completed around 2005.

'The energy centre will ensure minimal carbon dioxide emissions through the use of sustainable technologies such as combined heat and power,' says Fullerton. 'Throughout the building, there will be energy-saving initiatives, including effective lighting control, high insulation levels and sub- metering of specialist installations.'

He adds that the overall design of the White City project aims to minimise water consumption though the use of spray taps, low-flush toilets, leak detectors and an integrated rainwater collection systems for watering the landscaped areas. Waste reduction and recycling will also be encouraged by incorporating space for storage with good access arrangements. He adds that harmful ozone depleting substances, such as halons, will be avoided and natural ventilation will be favoured over air conditioning.

When the Television Centre building was recently refurbished, the property team had the chance to implement some of its environmental protection ideas. Natural ventilation, including motorised windows operated by a thermostat, was installed to cool the building at night. Together with high efficiency lighting, the natural ventilation removed the need for artificial air conditioning in the majority of the building.

Less stuffy
'It has all created a better environment for staff,' says Fullerton. 'It's less stuffy, it's saving money and staff enjoy having a degree of control over their environment. They have access to a window and can pull down a shutter.'

A host of initiatives has emerged from the four other environmental groups. Members of the environmental waste group sent 4,000 aluminium film cans for recycling at Chesterfield Recycling Centre. The film tape was removed and sent to a 'waste-to-energy' incinerator in Nottingham, where it was blended with domestic waste. Heat generated from the incinerator is used to generate electricity and provide central heating and hot water for the Nottingham District Heating Scheme.

The Climate Change Levy provided a major incentive for the environmental utilities group. Energy saving schemes implemented include movement-sensitive lighting and employees are encouraged to turn off idle IT equipment. In Broadcasting House, Glasgow, a review of timers that operate the air conditioning and heating saved an average 227 hours use per week, equivalent to 50 tonnes of CO2 a year.

A new shuttle bus is one of the initiatives launched by the environmental transport and travel group. Running between Television Centre and Broadcasting House, it services up to 300 passengers a day, helping to save up to 2,000 staff journeys a week.

Benchmarking
The environmental supply chain and procurement group has come up with several initiatives. At the end of last year, BBC Wildlife magazine became the world's first consumer magazine to carry the FSC logo, a certification mark which assure that the timber used to make the paper comes from a forest managed to the highest economic, environmental and ethical standards.

Fullerton says the BBC is benchmarking its environmental management and performance against two surveys — the 2000 Business in the Environment (BiE) survey and The Property Environment Group (PEG) industry survey.

The BiE, a non-profit-making organisation that promotes corporate environmental responsibility, is part of Business in the Community's environment campaign. The BBC's overall score in the 2000 BiE survey was 72 per cent, matching the FTSE 100 average. In the Cyclical Services sector, the BBC came 15th out of the 51 participating companies and second in the media and photography group.

The PEG survey benchmarked BBC properties' environmental credentials against similar sized organisations. The survey covered existing developments, new build and portfolio management. The BBC overall ranked second out of the 19 participating companies, which included BT Property, British Land and Land Securities.

Despite this, Fullerton believes that a set of credible and realistic environmental key performance indicators needs to be established in the facilities management profession.

'We would all progress a lot further if we could share best practice and ideas to introduce and improve environmental performance in our facilities management contracts,' he says.

But for now, the BBC's first environmental report is a big step towards demonstrating greater accountability towards its stakeholders.