Portsmouth-based naval support company Fleet Support Limited (FSL) has demonstrated its green credentials by securing an advanced level of environmental accreditation.

The National Quality Assurance standard BS8555 illustrates businesses’ ability to meet rigorous environmental management standards and follows a thorough assessment of industry practice and procedures.

FSL has become the first shiprepair company in the UK to achieve the standard after working through a full five-phase assessment, with funding assistance from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and consultancy support from White,Young & Green Environmental

FSL Managing Director Ian Booth explained: “The assessment has led to us introducing training and monitoring systems that will enable us to control and reduce our pollutants.”

FSL Energy and Environment Manager James Pollington added: “An EMS safeguards our future; if environmental management systems had been in place 50 years ago, then much of the clean-up costs and contamination issues facing us now could have been avoided. Independent studies show that companies that have embraced environmental management are typically more productive, attractive to customers, and better places to work.”

FSL has been at the forefront of energy saving moves at Portsmouth Naval Base with emissions into the local atmosphere cut by nearly 20 per cent in the year up to the end of March.

  

The Base’s War on Waste campaign, persuading workers to switch off equipment when not in use and make other energy savings, has spearheaded the initiatives, while other moves to reduce power consumption have included better operational management of the steam heating system and improvements in the way quayside berths are used. FSL has also significantly cut the Naval Bases’ CO2 emissions by switching from heavy fuel to gas to fire the huge boilers, which provide steam heating to the site.