WINNING the environmental awareness is a real boost to spur staff at Queensgate on to roll out more green initiatives in 2009.

"It is a great achievement for everyone at Queensgate – our housekeeping team, our facilities management team and our retailers," said marketing manager Phil Drinkwater.

"It is great that all our green initiatives over 12 months have been recognised by the business community."

When it opened in 1982, Queensgate was one of the first large-scale shopping centres in the UK, with 90 plus stores, trading in more than 800,000sq ft.

Queensgate has an environmental management system (EMS) developed and implemented to cover environmental management and operation of the centre.

The core principles and conditions of the EMS are: Waste management with particular emphasis on re-use and minimisation; improved energy efficiency; awareness and education/understanding of environmental impact among tenants, contractors, visitors and the community.

In the last 12 months, Queensgate has made significant progress towards reducing its carbon footprint.

It has upgraded its Business Management System, which, along with enhanced lighting controls and staff awareness, has led to a 23 per cent reduction in electricity consumption. During 2008 all electricity procured, while not wholly from renewable resources, has met the climate levy exempt standard.

The proportion of waste recycled increased from 14 per cent to 41 per cent during 2007. Waste recycling is on target to increase to 50 per cent during 2008. This dramatic increase has resulted from a number of initiatives including retailer education; Peterborough Environment City Trust (PECT) waste audit; a public awareness campaign; the appointment of an environmental services manager.

Highly commended:
MIDAS TECHNOLOGIES is a company which designs, manufactures and installs bespoke metal products and plant for a wide range of industries.

It has recently launched the Aquai-Mod, a unique device being used throughout the water industry, which minimises continuous over-pressurisation of the mains therefore reducing energy consumption on pumps and stress on the mains.

It has been proven to save 250,000 litres of water per day.
The company is also working with universities on Sustainable Technology Initiatives and other worldwide water projects.

COMPASS: From re-use and recycling to debt advice – the services offered by Compass address a wide range of issues faced by Peterborough on its journey towards becoming a sustainable city.

During the past 12 months Compass has stepped up the game by signing large contracts with national organisations to help deal with Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) responsibly. Working with both donors of WEEE (such as Hotpoint) and key retailers of second hand goods, it has dramatically increased the reach and outputs for Compass in Peterborough and beyond.

In the last year more than 2,000 units of WEEE have been re-homed via Compass – all of which could easily have ended up in landfill.