This year, Tops Day Nurseries introduced a brand new sustainability category to the Dorset Venus Awards. As part of the application process, Tops Day Nurseries have been interviewing our 5 semi-finalists and would like to share their incredible stories with you! We’d love to introduce you to Lynda Daniels of The Southern Sustainability Partnership.
After meeting her business partner during the Green Knowledge Network, Lynda grew frustrated with how little support there was in the region for organisations who were increasingly being asked to improve their business practice. Lynda was also seeing first-hand just how much businesses were having to spend on issues such as energy and waste.
In 2016, Lynda and her business partner launched The Southern Sustainability Partnership and, what grew into The Big Green Event Expo 2016.
Events such as the expo covers as many aspects of going – and staying as green as possible. From solar panels to natural pest control to an eco-motor showcase and much more. There are exhibitors, free workshops and a keynote speaker theatre. The expo was organised with the vision to ensure it’s free to attend and free to park so that every business can attend without any financial barriers.
They have been able to help more large businesses from across the region and the UK, but strive to attract even more local ones. Visitors have included many large organisations from both the private and public sector and names such as Google, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Network Rail, Body Shop, British Airways, GSK – as well as universities, local authorities and NHS Trust.
Lynda role models sustainability in her own office, despite the challenges of it being an old building and having purchasing decisions managed by an external property management company. Lynda took this as an opportunity to educate the management team. They have now installed separate bins outside the office building so that each office can make responsible decisions with their waste and recycling. From her own office, there is a strict recycling policy and they have also installed an energy, paper and ink efficient printer to reduce our footprint.
Lynda and her team also demonstrated just how much energy could be saved by introducing them to low energy LED lighting and the management has commissioned a company to look at what is needed in the building, the cost and savings involved, plus much more.
We hope you will join us in wishing Lynda good luck during the next stage of her application process!
