Green Commitment

Dynamic Earth are committed to continually providing a high quality of service, whilst minimising our environmental impact.

To enforce our commitment we have become a member of VisitScotland’s Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS).  This is an independent accreditation scheme which encourages the tourism industry to reduce the environmental impact of their activities.

We are delighted that we have been awarded a GOLD grade for our achievements and efforts towards becoming a ‘greener’ business.

By encouraging green practices it aims to ensure the continued enjoyment of Scotland for future generations. 

Through the membership of the Green Tourism Business Scheme we have committed to:

• Continuously seek to improve our environmental and social performance in all our business activities.
• Comply with the requirements of environmental legislation and approved codes of practice.
• Reduce our usage of energy, water and other resources.
• Raise awareness, encourage participation and train employees in sustainable business practices.

You can find out more about the Green Tourism Business Scheme by following this link:  www.green-business.co.uk

Dynamic Earth also currently holds a SILVER award from the Keep Edinburgh Clean scheme (KEC) run by Edinburgh City Council.

2 years on...

We are delighted that our efforts have been acknowledged with the upgrade from our previous Silver award to our current Gold. We achieved this by completing an evolving action plan, some of these points are detailed below:

• Recycle all our waste paper and buy sustainable copier paper.
• Recycle all recyclable materials including plastic drinks bottles, cardboard, glass & toner cartridges.
• Begin a food waste collection program.
• Attend training sessions on being a 'green business'.
• Sub-metering to monitor utility usage to enable us to control our usage and costs.
• Auto-flush loo’s and tap sensors for water waste reduction.
• Offer alternatives to plastic carrier bags in our natural selection gift shop.
• Sell green products (including Fair Trade) in our natural selection gift shop.
• Car park lighting has been changed using low energy lamps with sensors. 
• Wall lighting to be changed to low energy/LED with sensors.
• Car park ramp lighting has low energy lamps with sensors.
• Dishwasher in main kitchen, this saves around 76,440 litres of water per year & around 7Kw per hour of energy.
• Continue to run the green committee to help and encourage all staff to be as environmentally friendly as possible.
• Marketing leaflets and promotional tools printed on recycled paper (which can also be recycled).
• Timer plugs on photocopiers.
• New packaging on sandwiches sold in our food chain cafe so they can be recycled.
• Selling Fair Trade items in our food chain cafe.
• The use of ‘intelligent extension leads’ on all PC’s, these will shut down all attached printers/monitors etc when the PC shuts down.
• Time lag switches in back of house areas, meaning lights will auto shut off after 10 minutes.
• Turning circle lighting has been changed to low energy/LED sensor lighting.
• Install energy saving lighting throughout Dynamic Earth (this has already begun and will be an on-going process). 

What's next?

The above list is just the beginning, we already have the next stage of plans ready to go;

• Kitchens/all corridors and plant rooms to have dimmers/auto shut off devices installed.
• Explore the use of  water and wind power as an energy source (we will be talking to Scottish Hydro on this topic).
• Auto flushes in the urinals so hygiene requirements balance with our eco stance.   

This is our revised list so it’s great that we can see new items as well as existing items moving from the ‘To Do’ list onto the ‘Completed’ list.  Again once we have achieved our goals, we will of course be continuing our green commitment and will keep looking for new ways we can help the environment.

Our aim is that in 5 years time, Dynamic Earth will be one of the most energy efficient buildings in Scotland.