CASE STUDIES / office

Waste Open Day identifies ~£8,500 in annual waste costs

Challenge

Sustainable Ventures is home to hundreds of climate innovators, working from a 600-person space at County Hall. But like almost every workplace, its own waste was a blind spot: no data on what was actually being thrown away, what it cost, or where the carbon sat.

The instinct was there — people wanted to do the right thing. The system wasn't keeping up. Bins overflowed around hot desks, kitchen bins were used incorrectly, and nobody could say with confidence where the biggest impact was hiding.

What we did

We ran a Waste Open Day at reception. For one day, the pop-up kit turned waste from something invisible into something everyone could see: staff sorted their own waste into eight streams — plastic bottles, coffee cups, food waste, paper, food packaging, drink cartons, cans and other — in real time, in the middle of their working day.

Alongside the sorting, a short pulse survey captured how people felt about waste in their workplace: their motivation, their confidence in the system, and what they'd support next.

Within two weeks, Sustainable Ventures had a full Insights & Recommendations report: the waste split, projected annual cost and carbon, employee sentiment, and a tiered action plan the team could move on directly.

The results

~£8,500 in annual waste costs identified

54% of waste from food operations

One day of sorting revealed the hotspots. Food and food packaging together made up 54% of everything captured — carrying the highest combined cost and carbon impact, and giving the team two clear priorities instead of eight vague ones.

The data scaled into a business case. Projected across the year, the building's waste footprint came to roughly 6 tonnes of waste, ~£8,500 in annual costs across disposal, upstream and regulatory exposure, and ~17 tonnes of CO2e.

The people case was even stronger. Staff scored 4.8/5 on willingness to support new initiatives — the highest score in the survey — while ease of using the facilities scored only 3.4/5.

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