Aksum Ltd want to leave a positive impact by reducing and minimising the CO2 footprint.
We actively pursue an environmental consideration process in our procurement and delivery of what we do.
Whenever practicable we ensue that our labour uses public transport or if not possible they at least car share.
Aksum Ltd accepts that its activities generate waste material.
Therefore, the Environmental Policy of the Company is to ensure so far as it is reasonably practicable that all its operations will be carried out with a commitment to reducing waste, thereby protecting and enhancing the environment.
The same commitment will be expected to be shown by contractors working for the Company.
Concern and awareness for the environment is a fundamental principle of the Company’s business.
The Company therefore seeks to comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulation.
It also aims to establish higher standards of environmental performance including waste management where these are practicable and appropriate.
The Company employees are required to carry out their duties with concern for the environment. All Company employees must adhere to the aims and objectives of the Policy.
In the event of an environmental accident or incident at work, it is a Company requirement that the details are promptly and properly reported to Gedas Rimas who will investigate and take prompt action to make good any damage and avoid recurrence.
All contractors working on behalf of the Company are required to adopt environmental standards fully consistent with those of the Company and they are expected to achieve comparable levels of performance.
- Objectives
In accordance with its stated policy, the Company has produced the following list of objectives as a sound framework for the introduction of practices to implement the Company’s Environmental Policy:
- Compliance with current environmental legislation and Government Regulations.
- Swift response to accidents or incidents that have a potential to threaten the environment.
- The provision of advice on the safe handling of company products, their transportation and their final disposal to customers, contractors, etc.
- The disposal of any waste products in ways that show concern for the environment using only registered carriers to dispose of waste, and to recycle wherever possible.
- To encourage the development of products, processes and equipment with concern for the future of the environment.
- To communicate freely on environmental matters with government officials, employees, customers and members of the public.
- To provide training for all employees, as appropriate, to enable them to carry out their job functions in a manner that shows care for the environment.
- To carry out environmental audits when required.
- To promote environmental principles by sharing experience with regulatory bodies, other companies, employees and members of the public.
- In implementing this Environmental Policy Statement, the Company will focus on action to conserve resources and energy, to minimise emissions into air or water and onto land and to increase recycling rates.
- The Company will also seek to influence legislative developments and improve public understanding of environmental matters concerning the business.
This Policy will be regularly reviewed and updated as necessary. The management team endorses these Policies and is fully committed to their implementation.
Everyone goes home in the same or better condition than when they came to work. We train our people which by virtue makes them safer and have the strictest view on safety.
- Introduction
- Aksum Ltd (“the Company”) recognises and accepts its responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 including the responsibility to:
- provide and maintain a safe and healthy place of work
- provide adequate information, instruction, training and supervision
- provide and maintain plant and equipment and safe systems of work
- ensure safe access to and from the places of work
- work to prevent accidents and work-related ill health
- Aksum Ltd (“the Company”) recognises and accepts its responsibilities under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 including the responsibility to:
- General Health and Safety
- The overall responsibility for health and safety lies with the Managing Director, Christian Downing. The managing Director has day to day responsibility for managing health and safety both at the Company’s premises and wherever Company employees or sub- contractors are working.
- The Management is committed to complying with the requirements of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, the Work at Height Regulations 2005, Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2012 and all other Regulations that apply to the Company’s work activities.
- The Management will ensure that appropriate levels of risk assessments are carried out of all work activities carried out by the Company in order to identify any hazards, and will then ensure that control measures are implemented to prevent any injury, disease and dangerous occurrences arising.
- The Management will ensure that none of the Company’s work adversely affects the health or safety of any contractors or of members of the public. Furthermore, the supervisor on every site will ensure that no member of the public including where appropriate, the clients, are exposed to any hazards caused by the Company.
- The Management will at all times ensure compliance with CDM 2015 and provide adequate welfare facilities on all its sites.
- The Company will strive to maintain excellence in health and safety matters and in this respect, employees and others are encouraged to co-operate with the management in all safety matters, to identify hazards and reduce the risk which may exist during work activities and to report any condition which may appear dangerous or unsatisfactory. The Company will at all times consult with the employees on these matters.
- The Management will, so far as reasonably practicable, ensure that the Company provides adequate financial resources to meet these objectives.
- Copies of this policy are to be available to all Company employees and other interested parties.
- Directors’/Partners’ Duties
- The Directors/Partners will have at least basic knowledge and understanding of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and its associated Regulations and Approved Codes of Practice.
- It will be the responsibility of all the Directors/Partners to keep all employees, and where appropriate any sub-contractors, advised as to their responsibilities in respect of health and safety matters.
- In order to protect the safety and health of employees and others affected by the Company’s operations, the Directors/Partners will:
- Ensure they are familiar with the hazards associated with the type of construction works the Company is involved with and with the precautions which need to be taken to eliminate or control those risks.
- Establish procedures to deal with any emergencies.
- Appoint a suitably trained and competent person to assist them in carrying out their health and safety duties.
- Ensure that employees receive sufficient training and information so that they can carry out their duties safely and competently.
- Ensure that risk assessments are carried out on all hazardous activities.
- Initiate the timing and annual review of the Health and Safety Policy and ensure it is promoted to all employees and others working on behalf of the Company.
- Ensure that all employees carry out the health and safety duties allocated to them.
- Ensure the safety performance of the Company is monitored and take action to remedy any identified deficiencies.
- Ensure that adequate provision is made for welfare facilities at all sites and that adequate first aid provisions are made.
- Ensure that all necessary PPE is provided to employees, and that instruction is given on its use.
- Designated Health & Safety Person’s Duties
- To ensure that all the Company Directors/Partners, Supervisors and Staff are aware of their individual Health and Safety responsibilities.
- To initiate and/or recommend any changes, developments and amendments to the policy as and when necessary.
- To inform the Health and Safety Executive of all notifiable accidents. Investigate any accidents or dangerous occurrences and recommend means of preventing re-occurrence.
- To arrange appropriate training for all employees.
- To create and maintain a Training Matrix for all staff.
- To ensure that Risk Assessments (including where appropriate, COSHH, Noise, Manual Handling etc.) are carried out as needed.
- To ensure follow up action as needed.
- To promote an interest and responsible attitude towards Health and Safety matters throughout the Company.
This policy will be reviewed annually or when there is a change in circumstances, in work practices or the introduction of new legislation.
We, as a business, understand that diversity is so important in our business if we want to flourish and evolve into what we want it to be.
We engage many different types of people as we can see the total benefit to us. By this diversity we have to engage with different faiths, religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds and minorities.
We as three friends are very different and diverse, but we think this is why we are growing year on year.
Our approach
We understand that by engaging with different cultures it gives us an advantage over some competitors as we don’t suffer from the labour shortfalls at certain times of the year and different people take time away from work at different times.
Originally, we employed primarily British and Lithuanian labour as that was all we knew and the labour pool was limited primarily to this select few.
But now as we have grown and developed, we understand the benefits of having a multi-cultural work force. Different people bring different skills and attitudes into our business which makes us more dynamic.
Because of the variants of people in our business we will keep evolving. We treat all persons as equals and as such the opportunities we offer are for all and do not discriminate and any shapes.
The modern slavery act was introduced in the UK in October 2015 with the sole and primary aim of stamping out slavery and trafficking.
It was also there to highlight the plight of the people involved and to bring about a greater awareness of the problem to the masses.
The creation of this act brought about number of new criminal offences.
Modern slavery is an international crime and violation of human rights. The offence has no boundaries of gender, age, race, or religion.
It also highlights the various different types of slavery which sometimes are not always as well understood.
These range from servitude, force labour, under paid labour and human trafficking to name but a few.
The purpose of the policy for Aksum Ltd is to ensure our people understand the policy and to give them a better understanding of what modern slavery looks like, how we can ensure we do not make the mistake of working with people or companies who engage in modern slavery.
We want our people to feel empowered to understand it so where possible report it. We, as a business, take due diligence by checking the chain of custody and history of suppliers, partners and subcontractors.
Aksum policy statement on modern slavery
We will never knowingly engage with anyone who we think may be engaged with modern slavery or can’t comply with our rigorous checks or questions. We expect total transparency from anyone working with us in any way.
We ensure that our managers understand what to look out for if we are engaging with someone through a third party to ensure that they are not being manipulated or treated unfairly by that third party.
We will never knowingly turn a blind eye from modern slavery.
We, as a business, demand the very best from ourselves and our people. We have many protocols which ensure that we do our utmost to get quality every time.
We have grown our business by delivering quality and ensuring defects or rework is minimised to its lowest possible amount.
We use a management platform technique known as ‘LEAN’ and we employ behavioural management techniques known BmOS.
We employ rigorous chain of custody checks from our suppliers by way of factory tours to ensure that our expectations can be achieved and delivered.
We inform our people and cement our values on our workforce by investing in training. We understand the importance of knowledge combined with new learning experiences does not just improve our people, but it improves our business.
We have adopted a behavioural management technique (BmOS) which was taught to our operations director many years ago and we have learnt the benefits of this to understanding the phycology of behaviours in construction and how to gain the most from our people.
BmOS allows us to understand why people do things in certain ways and how we can change or influence peoples behaviours towards quality so as they work in unison with us.
Methodology – we ensure that we have the correct people with the correct skill sets and training and if we have a short fall or failing, we work with various training bodies to counteract this.
We use I.T. P’s to form the basis to the most advance or singular operation to ensure that our clients get a lasting product or asset that meets their expectation and our high demand for quality.
We will never accept poor quality, sub standards or allow someone to represent our business who don’t share the same ethos as us.