(left to right) Vet Becky Sedman, Vet Eve Smaller holding Nell the Border Terrier puppy and Clinical Director Sarah Ford with certificate.
York Vet Practice Lands Environmental Award
3 years ago 
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A YORK veterinary practice has secured a prestigious environmental award after embracing a greener future.
The Minster Veterinary Practice has earned an Investors in the Environment (iiE) silver award for helping to lead the way in making the veterinary profession more environmentally friendly.
Investors in the Environment is an environmental accreditation scheme designed to help organisations reduce their impact on the environment by cutting resource use and waste production and engaging the team.
Minster Vets has been reducing its carbon footprint and cutting waste by introducing a wide range of environmentally friendly initiatives.
Clients bringing their pets to their main Salisbury Road hospital have been supporting the practice’s work by bringing in plastic pet food pouches for recycling and receiving invoices, receipts and admin communications by email rather than paper.
Among the green initiatives introduced are recycling PPE, including masks, gloves and aprons, worn by vets and nurses during the pandemic; placing recycling stations for paper, cardboard and plastic around the practice; having milk bottles delivered by the milkman every day instead of buying plastic cartons and reducing water, gas and electricity consumption by at least 2%.
The environmental initiatives have been led by vet Becky Sedman, who has a keen interest in sustainability after undertaking the business sustainability management course at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership.
Becky said: “Everyone at the practice is really proud to have earned the award as we were all on board with ideas to cut waste, recycling more and embracing sustainable ways of working.
“The veterinary profession is caring by nature so looking after the planet is a natural extension of looking after pets, animals and wildlife. We know how animals and the planet interact so it is our duty to protect the environment and we should take responsibility for our impact on the environment.
“Even just small changes have helped us to achieve our targets and create a more sustainable future. The whole team has really thrown itself into sustainability and it has been a great team effort.”
Minster Vets is part of VetPartners, a veterinary group with 160 practices across the UK, which earlier this year unveiled its sustainability strategy, committing itself and practices to a range of goals that put sustainability at the heart of everything the company does.
Minster Vets, one of its founding practices, is the first practice within the group to secure an Investors in the Environment award.
VetPartners Sustainability Strategy: Looking Forward Together, has been rolled out across its 550 UK sites and can be viewed here: https://vetpartnersgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/VetPartners-Sustainability-Strategy.pdf
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