Seeing is Believing Environmental visit in the South East

On 3 April 2009, delegates from 11 companies attended a Seeing is Believing visit with an emphasis on climate change in Southampton, Hampshire. The visit offered a unique opportunity to see for themselves the work being done locally to tackle the issue, and the opportunities for business it presents.

The companies that sent representatives to attend this visit were: Amey Plc, BOC Ltd, Costain, Bond Pearce LLP, Procter & Gamble, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Jobsite Ltd, Serco Civil Government, British American Tobacco, and NATS.

The whole day was hosted by Lily Federico of Veolia Environmental Services and started off at NATS Air Traffic Control Centre in Swanwick, where the attendees learnt about how building design and management processes can effectively reduce carbon footprint, and how by controlling aircraft in flight,  CO2 emissions can be cut by 2.6m tonnes by 2020.

The next stop on the visit was at the Heat Station for the Southampton Geothermal Heating Company. It was here that everyone heard from Simon Woddward of Utilicom about their geothermal heating scheme which delivers an impressive output whilst saving over 11,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.

The last stop of the tour before returning to NATS was at Veolia Environemental Services at their Marchwood Site. Richard Johnson provided an insight into waste management in a facility which processes 165,000 tonnes of waste per year, and supplies to the National Grid enough energy to power around 22,600 local homes.

Below is a short film of the day's events thanks to BSkyB.