Robert Wiseman Dairies (Wiseman) process and deliver more than 30% of the fresh milk consumed in Britain and have made sustainability an integral part of how they do business. Wiseman believe that they have an obligation to do all they can to minimise their environmental impact and that minimising the amount of resource required to collect, process and distribute their product is critical to their business success. 

To guide them through these commitments, Wiseman’s Sustainability Strategy focuses on reducing greenhouse gases, waste and minimising resources use, with targets set for 2015 against a 2009/10 baseline. The practical delivery of the Strategy is guided by a variety of plans and sub-strategies (e.g. on energy, refrigeration, transport, renewable energy, waste, water and effluent) and a robust approach to employee engagement: Wiseman has 4,800 staff and operates from 21 locations.

In 2011 Wiseman’s approach to staff engagement was recognised by Tesco as the 'Best Carbon Reduction Staff Campaign'.

This Green Club visit will give you the opportunity to learn about the challenges and success of Wiseman’s environmental initiatives (e.g. as highlighted in their 2011 Annual Report) and its award winning staff engagement approach.

Update: If you missed the visit, or require an aid-memoire from the day, here are the two presentations and our own summary of the visit.

On 23 Feb 2012 Wiseman Group Dairies (Wiseman) hosted a Green Club visit to its Cairn Place Dairy in East Kilbride.  Eleven delegates from many of Scotland’s leading food and drink manufacturers took part in the visit to learn about how Wiseman’s foster environmental change through effective staff engagement.

Wiseman believe that the successful delivery of its Sustainability Strategy will require both behaviour and technological changes, but feel that without behavioural change, the implementation of technological solutions is unlikely to successful. With the emphasis on employee engagement, the implementation of the strategy is decided locally on a site by site level with support from the Group’s environmental team. Wiseman Dairies has diverse approach for engaging staff includes:

• Environmental Management System (EMS) working groups,
• Environmental performance site tours,
• Formal training (e.g. Safe and Fuel Efficient Driver Training (SAFED)),
• Environmental workshops
• Specific EMS workshops and tool-box talks, and
• Environmental improvement treasure hunts.

Wiseman’s approach helps employees understand how certain behaviours can have an impact at a personal level and, with the expectation that changes at home transfer to the workplace, regularly hosts environmental workshops (e.g. with Love Food, Hate Waste or the Energy Saving Trust).

Wiseman also places a lot of emphasis on involving their staff in identifying environmental challenges (e.g. environmental themed site tours or their environmental treasure hunts) and giving them ownership for finding and implementing solutions

This ’bottom-up’ approach has not only encouraged staff to be more involved and engaged and has also helped Wiseman’s save money and cut carbon through the adoption of simple and innovative solutions.  Wiseman admit that their employees are a “huge reservoir of knowledge and skills” when it comes to environmental issues (and openly state “that 4,800 environmental champions are better than 4”).

The key messages taken from the visit were; listen to staff; make the effort to communicate environmental issues with employees; give each and every staff member the opportunity, responsibility and challenge of becoming a green champion; and recognise those who that help make a difference.