Sustainability
Conscious furnishings that meet the needs of the future.
A letter from our Sustainability Editor
“At Elm Gray, sustainability isn’t an afterthought. We challenge the way we think, evolving our practices to suit a changing world. Working with our clients, we help them reduce their impact on the environment by providing better products and cleaner services while offsetting our carbon footprint using tangible initiatives.
We urgently feel the need to future-proof our buildings by embracing sustainability from inception, creating safe, nurturing communities for people to live and work in, with complete peace of mind.
Our team collaborates with our clients, both initiating and following directives with full consideration of sustainability plans.
As a future-focused company, we continue to welcome flexible and agile ways of working to sustain a high-performing but balanced workplace. Our people are at the heart of what we do, so investing in their learning and development, their wellbeing, and their happiness is at the core of our culture and values.”
Sarah Doyle, Sustainability Editor
Sustainable practices
Our sustainable practices are embedded into our daily actions, including the Elm Gray culture.
With two BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) associates on our team and a dedicated in-house Sustainability Champion educating and pushing us to improve our sustainability practices, we have buckets of enthusiasm and ideas to continue to innovate.
Some of our current practices include responsible onsite waste management and recycling; ensuring we use renewable energy sources and LED bulbs in all our buildings, warehouses and projects; aiming to have a fully electric fleet by 2025. We’ve partnered with Energy Elephant, a software platform that allows us to record our energy usage, waste and carbon emissions.
Working with our supply chain to develop ways to reduce environmental impacts, including reviewing the environmental credentials of suppliers, and ensuring acceptable workplace standards across our supply chains.
We source locally-made products where possible, with a goal of sourcing 50% of our products from within Ireland, 30% from Europe and 20% from Asia.
We are committed to respecting human rights and doing everything in our power to ensure we are honouring that principle by working with our suppliers to check that their workplace practices are ethical.
We’ve partnered with Cloudforest, a tree-planting organisation with four forests along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way who, like us, are focused on climate action, sustainability, biodiversity, and environmental protection. We are really excited to be planting our own forest of native trees in 2023 and have a target of one tree for every apartment furnished, working to offset our carbon footprint per year until we reach net zero within our company practices by 2030.
We are also a member of the Irish Green Building Council (IGBC), attending conferences and using their learning hub resources to keep up to date with the latest information and sustainability changes within the built environment. The IGBC has developed the first sustainability certification for new homes: the HPI (Housing Performance Index). Our aim is to raise awareness with all our clients to help gain this certification.
