Responsible Business Practice

At Holden we pride ourselves on taking every possible care to ensure we minimise the energy we use and reduce our impact on the environment.

We spend £28,000 annually on recycling waste materials. We aim to recycle as much of our waste materials as possible. Unfortunately, some of the products that we are required to use are not recyclable, but where suitable alternatives are not available, we always dispose of the waste responsibly, follwing the latest government legislation guidelines.

In a typical year we would recycle the following:

• 400m3 of cardboard
• 3200 tyres
• 35000 litres of engine oil
• 8000 litres of other lubricants and fluids
• 9800 litres of aerosols and sprays
• 30m3 of waste paper
• All brake components
• Batteries
• Contaminated fuel

Furthermore we have undertaken a series of initiatives to reduce the energy we use in running our business. These include:

• Installing a computer system to optimise the heating of our workshops & parts departments. By calculating the optimum times to start and stop our heating system we can reduce the amount of electricity needed. The heating cannot be left on at night and will cut out if a door is left open.
• Urinals have been converted to reduce waste water from unnecessary flushing when they have not been used.
• Where possible low energy light bulbs have been installed throughout the group.
• Our most commonly used paper products are sourced from ecologically sound suppliers.
• We are also in the process of investing to convert all our internal management systems to operate electronically. This which will significantly reduce the amount of paper we use within the businesses.
• We store our vehicles in a secure compound away from the city centre so that the large transporters delivering our cars to us do not block the city centre streets when unloading our cars.
• We are at present investigating the compatibility of a software package that will control our computers ensuring that they power down overnight and minimise their energy usage.