Continuing enhancements of its environmental measures - including a wormery to dispose of difficult food waste - have enabled the Royal College of Physicians to maintain Gold status in a demanding sustainability standard operated by one of the world’s leading conference centre organisations.
The RCP is one of only seven members of the UK chapter of the International Association of Conference Centres (IACC) - the worldwide organisation that promotes excellence in the conference sector - to have reached the Gold standard. IACC is heavily committed to promoting environmentally responsible practices within the global venues sector, and has in place a rigorous Code of Sustainability.
The Code has more than 50 specific performance tenets in areas that include waste management, recycling, water conservation, energy management, air quality and purchasing. IACC monitors and updates the Code periodically in order to ensure that it reflects state-of-the-art best practices. Members are required to report on their activities: Gold status is only awarded to venues that achieve at least 85% of the tenets.
The RCP’s most recent actions in relation to the environment include the introduction of an in-house ‘Greencare’ filtered water system involving re-usable bottles. The system eliminates the need to buy bottles of water commercially and the consequent problems of disposing of the glass and plastic packaging waste they produce. The process, based in the College’s Jerwood learning centre, filters, chills, carbonates (as required) and dispenses water straight from the mains water supply. Bottles are then sterilised and re-circulated back into the system. All events at the College, now use water and bottles from the system.
In a further initiative, the College is experimenting with the use of worms to help dispose of waste food product that cannot be sent for successful recycling - for example, tea bags. It has created a wormery, about the size of a beehive, in which worms break down material into products that can be used as garden compost or as liquid fertiliser. The College will review the effectiveness of its first wormery and assess whether further units are appropriate.
The RCP has also linked up with a new recycling collection service for office toner cartridges. Called Recycling Appeal, the service is a charity which refills used cartridges and then sells them on to generate profits which are passed to selected charities. The RCP has chosen the Cancer Research charity.
The Royal College of Physicians is one of the UK’s oldest medical institutions, and as such has a comprehensive environmental policy which informs all activities at its headquarters. “Our standard-setting commitment to sustainability continues to be an important factor for many of our customers, not only in terms of medical events, but also across all business sectors,” commented Clive Ostler, the RCP's General Manager, and Marketing & Facilities.