UK Enterprise Awards 2021

80 | UK Enterprise Awards 2021 Jun21086 Best Waste Management Consultancy 2021 Ethical and legally compliant environmental and waste management consultancy, Encore Environment, provides total waste management, strategic support, invaluable data and customised solutions to help construction companies achieve their sustainability goals. We find out more from Managing Director, Rachel Rowley. Encore Environment is a waste management and environmental consultancy working across the UK. Through intelligent use of data, thorough knowledge of the supply chain and a flexible mindset, it helps construction companies engage in more sustainable practices and, at the same time, drive up margins. It’s work is a clear example of how the ethical and the profitable can align. With a nationwide chain of stringently vetted suppliers, it is fully aligned with the industry waste hierarchy and compliant with Environment Agency standards. It offers everything from skips, bins and cages to compactors, WEEE, hazardous waste disposal and other specialist needs. Whatever the service, Encore Environment can arrange and coordinate them all. The team also collaborates and supports logistics companies in strip-out and demolition projects to improve deconstruction and help with diversion of waste from landfill. Encore also has an in-house team of BREEAM assessors. They manage the waste management element, but also have a wealth of experience working across all aspects of BREEAM projects. This is a huge benefit for clients working on BREEAM projects. Rachel Rowley, Managing Director of Encore Environment, tells us more about the firm and its values. “This year we celebrate our 10-year anniversary, and our ethos from the start has always been to challenge the traditional routes of waste disposal to help protect the environment and help local communities,” she begins. “Our goals include reducing waste and costs, reusing waste on and off site, promoting zero to landfill, increased use of the circular economy, reducing carbon and site set-up solutions and their reporting, as standard.” In waste hierarchy, the last line of defence before landfill is to recycle and recover waste. However, this course of action still takes resources, costs, and consumes energy. Rachel explains that businesses need to evolve their thinking and actively reduce the amount of waste going through traditional routes of waste disposal, such as skips, bins and cages, in the first place. “There needs to be a shift in focus from recycling to waste prevention – if a waste material isn’t going through existing methods of waste disposal and being reused or repurposed, should it actually be classed as waste at all?” she asks. “Construction companies should be identifying opportunities to reuse items prior to strip out and demolition stage. These items can then be matched with charities, social enterprises or local organisations in need. Also, for any ‘clean’ excess materials, these can be exchanged or bid for by other construction sites. Encore’s online platforms Project DIVERT and MATexch have been established to facilitate this and provide data on the carbon outcomes based on the decisions that are made.” Project DIVERT is Encore Environment’s award-winning, data-driven web-based software. By connecting the waste items to its unique database, determining location, and need, Project DIVERT facilitates the diversion of reusable waste to social enterprises and communities such as schools, homeless shelters, libraries, hospitals and hospices. It also ensures all waste that can be recycled, such as metal and glass, is diverted to recycling and re-processing facilities. This all happens at the point of removal, so waste materials go direct to receivers for reuse, and direct to the re- processors and recyclers without going through a MRF, which means that it is also cleaner, and ‘zero to landfill’ is achieved. Since its launch, Project DIVERT has diverted over 56 tonnes of reusable construction waste from landfill and has helped 1600 organisations in need. In addition, construction companies save on average 30% on waste costs and have saved millions of tonnes of carbon in the process.