We have been working toward Bronze accreditation with Investors in the Environment [iiE] and have recently been awarded the Bronze Certificate for environmental improvement.

BVNA past President Jo Oakden’s presidential theme for 2020/21 was Sustainability. In order to show our commitment to sustainability, we registered with iiE and worked toward an industry-recognised accreditation.

Chief Executive, Huw Jones explains:

‘This involved benchmarking and monitoring our environmental performance over a 12-month period. This produced some surprising results as by reducing Council meetings from six in-person meetings a year to two in-person and four on zoom a year, we have halved our carbon footprint. After twelve months following regular monitoring visits and a final audit in November, we are delighted we have been awarded a Bronze Certificate in recognition of the work carried out.’

He also comments:

‘This is not the end as BVNA made a long-term commitment that sustainability and the environment would be themes that become embedded in our future work.’

Senior Vice President, Jo Oaken says:

‘This has been a real team effort; growing every single BVNA team members awareness of the impact we each have as an individual when it comes to being environmentally sustainable.

This is just the start as we will continue to be involved with driving environmental sustainability forward and encouraging our members to do the same.’

President, Alex Taylor, whose theme this year is resilience, has already confirmed our commitment to continue the good work. Alex says:

‘I am incredibly proud that the BVNA have achieved the Investors in the Environment Bronze Certificate. We have put lots of measures in place to reduce our carbon footprint and improve sustainability here at the BVNA and it has paid off. Senior Vice President Jo Oakden has led the way with her 2020-2021 theme of ‘sustainability’, and as a result we will endeavor to continue to learn and improve in any way we can to improve how sustainable we are as an association. I would like to thank our Office and Accounts Manager Angela Mariconda, who has put so much effort into driving change at the BVNA so that we achieved this accreditation. We are hoping to lead by example, so that other veterinary nurses will be inspired to think about what they do at their practice, how it might affect the environment and then look at different ways to improve environmental sustainability, which is something we all need to be mindful of.