(Credit: Canva)Atlas FM, a large facilities management company in the United Kingdom, has chosen reporting platform FuturePlus to help change its approach to social impact and sustainability through managing, measuring, and bettering its social and environmental impacts.
The company will introduce strategies and more sustainable products, equipment, and processes throughout 6,000 of its U.K. sites. The platform will help Atlas FM’s goal to positively impact the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) as well as aid the company's focus on how its business activities can be more efficient and sustainable.
Atlas FM, a privately-owned facilities management and building operations company, was founded almost 40 years ago as a small local business. It now keeps multiple corporate headquarters, sporting venues, industrial and manufacturing sites, schools, universities, hotels, and retail spaces clean, secure, ventilated, and heated. Using FuturePlus, a sustainability and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) management and reporting platform, Atlas FM can implement, track, and measure the sustainability of all its operations.
David Tarbuck, Atlas Group marketing and communications director, said the company wants to be proactive in addressing SGD, therefore changing its approach to ESG. Specific improvements include transforming Atlas FM’s recycling culture, reducing cleaning products that may harm aquatic life, and implementing more energy-efficient HVAC plans. FuturePlus will allow the company to develop a clear strategy on how to implement sustainability across the entire business and within communities, all through open communication with its clients, employees, and suppliers, he said.
FuturePlus will help Atlas FM increase its ESG by tailoring it to meet both business and sector-specific goals, allowing the company to apply the SDGs to processes in a real-life, practical way, the company said. To continue to build on its commitment to sustainability, Atlas FM can work toward common goals and track progress across FuturePlus’ five themes: climate, environment impact, economic impact, diversity and inclusion, and social impact.
Because of strategies developed with FuturePlus, Tarbuck said Atlas FM now understands where it stands compared to the SDGs and where it wants to go in the next 24 months.
A recent report by the UN Environment Programme says the built environmental sector is not on course to reach decarbonization by 2050 – something FuturePlus wants to change. The built environment represents over 33% of global final energy use, generates around 40% of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and consumes 40% of global raw materials with 25% being fresh water.
In Europe, the sector accounts for 40% of energy demand, and 80% of that comes from fossil fuels. According to a press release, that makes the sector a target area for immediate investment, action, and policies to promote energy security in the short and long term.
