Village Vet Earns IiE Bronze Award For Environmental Work

Village Vet, which has 30 practices across London, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, has been awarded bronze accreditation by Investors in the Environment (iiE), a nationwide initiative which encourages firms to introduce cleaner, more sustainable and more environmentally-friendly ways of working.

Led by a dedicated ‘green team’, Linnaeus-owned Village Vet has introduced a raft of measures to reduce energy use and cut its reliance on single-use items across all of its sites.

Inside the group’s practices, all lights are switched off when an area isn’t in use and recycling bins for different types of waste have been introduced.

On the clinical side, all clinicians now use reusable fabric hats, which reduce surgical infection as well as being kinder to the environment.

Village Vet’s Catherine Neill, who helped drive the sustainability push across the group, said: “We know how important it is for businesses to be more environmentally-friendly and it’s vital we back up our words with actions.

“We introduced a wide-ranging environmental plan with a high-level focus on policy commitment and started centralised actions across the group to make it easier for busy practices to reduce their impact.

“This included actions such as capnograph investment, uniformity in waste management across sites and group sustainability communications, so all of our practices are working together and in harmony.”

The iiE audit report concluded: “Great efforts have been made during a very challenging year to take on board sustainability as a large group.

“Centralised management support will initially be key to making it as easy as possible for staff to follow new ways of working and provide opportunities for leadership at practices.”

Village Vet has 30 practices across London, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. For more information, visit www.villagevet.co.uk or search for Village Vet on social media.