The FINANCIAL — ISS Facility Services Healthcare and 3663 have together won the 2011 Green Business Award for Partnership.
The two firms, under the ISS sustainability banner of "treading lightly together" demonstrated that an innovative approach to collaborative working made a significant difference to reducing carbon emissions, improving efficiency and cutting costs.
National supplier 3663's success continued with further recognition for its work with contract caterer Elior, which was highly commended in the Award for Partnership category.
The company was also highly commended for the overall Green Business of the Year Award as well as the Transport Award.
ISS Facility Services Healthcare's 14,500 employees serve more than 50 healthcare trusts, while 3663 is one of the UK's leading food service distributors. The companies worked closely to rationalise ISS' food service logistics requirements, as vehicle use accounts for the majority of the company's carbon emissions.
Detailed analysis and planning saw suppliers reduced from 51 to 23 and ultimately made 84% – or 33,147 – fewer deliveries each year. This reduced vehicle movements by 134,000 kilometres annually, cutting carbon emissions by an estimated 96 tonnes.
ISS also joined 3663's cooking oil recycling scheme, generating 141,000 litres of biodiesel, which the majority of the 3663 fleet runs on.
Innovation was also applied to procurement and e-ordering, reducing paper usage at ISS by 80%. Better data collection has improved the nutritional data available to ISS catering staff for planning patient meals as well.
Simon Cox, chief operating officer at ISS UK, said: "We listened to our customers in the NHS and then worked completely openly with 3663 to re-engineer our food service procurement and logistics to be better all round.
"For me, the most pleasing outcome is that we have further improved patient meals and the service that we provide to the trusts."
Tony Ball, director of sales at 3663, added: "Both companies agree that the advantage of this simple and effective model is that it can be easily extended and replicated to involve other suppliers and mirrored across additional customer groups from a range of sectors. Quite simply, this model makes good business sense."
The Green Business Awards celebrate excellence in green practice, strategy and products, seeking out the most innovative, ambitious and effective initiatives by UK business for achieving environmental sustainability, and implementing smart business practice.
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