Three times award winner at the Green Apple Awards
OCS has been awarded Gold, Silver and Bronze at the Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice in recognition of its work at retail and leisure destination Bluewater in Kent.
For the past 7 years OCS has delivered a full portfolio of security, cleaning, mechanical and electrical, concierge, landscaping, and management and administration services at Bluewater. The gold award was received for its ‘Making Room for Nature’ biodiversity project which also created a vital wellbeing space for the local community at the Bluewater nature trail.
Biodiversity initatives
As part of the project the team created 188m2 of new flower beds and introduced pollinating plants and British native species to support insects. An additional 330m2 of wildflower planting was seeded in low quality areas to include the Cotoneaster Franchetti which absorbs 20% more air pollutants than other similar sized shrubs. The team reviewed all the planting and worked in collaboration with the onsite landscaping team and ecologist to draft this programme of improvements.
Sustainability and Innovation
The Silver award was for an ‘LED lighting programme’ that OCS introduced which was a phased lighting upgrade programme to convert all functional lights to LED and install automated controls and metering. This has delivered a 65% reduction in energy costs and associated carbon emissions. The Bronze award was for a ‘Building Sustainable Communities’ project which saw the team work with several local charities and community groups to raise environmental awareness, delivering 90 hours of community-based volunteering and over £400,000 of social value over the past year.
“To win gold, silver and bronze at the Green Apple Awards is a fantastic achievement and the team at Bluewater should all be very proud of their hard work. Working in partnership with our client with aligned values around the importance of collaboration, integrity and respect for communities and the environment has helped us to make a real difference. We will continue to support biodiversity on site and intend to use it for educational purposes for local schools as part of our community-based volunteering projects.”
Jacky So
ESG Director at OCS UK & Ireland
