Over the last number of years, and particularly in 2018 and 2019, IMI have made significant investments in making our campus and organisational processes sustainable. Originally opened in 1974 and a 13-acre (53,000 m2) site, turning the IMI’s Campus into a sustainable site is a large-scale project requiring long-term commitment.

The below are some of the actions we have taken so far to move towards being a fully sustainable operation:

• We have installed a new Electrical Distribution Panel that will allow us to move towards photovoltaic (sun-based) panels, allowing us to generate electricity back to the grid and plan towards becoming a carbon neutral campus in future.
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• We’ve also upgraded our office and back office lighting to new LED fittings, as well as the car park – approximately 60% of campus lighting has now been upgraded.
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• We have replaced old pumps, which ran 24 hours per day, to new Magna 3 pumps that have auto-adaptive and variable speeds, delivering amazing energy savings throughout the year.
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• We have installed 32 new water fonts around the campus which has reduced the manufacturing, production and transportation energy costs of water bottles.
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• We are using compostable cups and reducing plastic bags uplifts (which were running into several hundred per week). These cups use no paper at all and are sugar cane based.
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• No single use plastics in IMI’s restaurant, and we are encouraging our vendors to do the same.
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• We have implemented a new waste stream management area, reducing our recycled, compostable and general waste. This has resulted in a 33% reduction of waste transferred to waste plants.
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• We have installed cardboard bailers, significantly improving the efficiency of transportation of cardboard waste off the campus..
• We have installed a new building management system to allow for better controls and reduction of heating and air systems..
• As part of the new toilet refurbishment we have changed processes to reduce our water requirement by up to 30%..
• We follow rigorous checks on catering numbers every day to ensure limited waste of meals..
• We’ve installed a new more energy efficient heating and cooling system in IMI’s Conference Centre.
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• We are introducing a ‘no print policy’ in some of our short programmes.

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These changes come from both direct, financial investments and simple changes of mindset. There is a lot more to do but we are actively working towards our goal of becoming a fully sustainable organisation.

On September 26^th, 2019, IMI’s National Management Conference will tackle what leader’s need to do in this era of climate change and how they can successfully lead their organisations using sustainable practices. For more information, go here.