Placemakers is a nationwide chain that sells building products to tradespeople and home-owners. The Invercargill branch is a 7 day a week business, which employs 42 staff members. The sustainability programme at Placemakers Invercargill is founded on the principle of caring for the natural environment, ensuring that its resources are preserved for the future.

  Operations Manager, Derelle Polaschek says the business’ biggest savings since introducing sustainability initiatives are in electricity usage; “it’s probably gone to half of what we were using 2 years ago.” Waste management is also a focus at Placemakers Invercargill. Previously, the business was sending approximately 6 skips of waste to landfill a month, they now only fill between 2 and 3 skips a month. As Derelle explains, “that’s made a huge difference by doing our recycling which is a big cost saving for us as well.”

A monthly health and safety meeting is held at Placemakers Invercargill and sustainability is always included on the meeting agenda. “We’ve just made it another part of that so it is always ongoing, always at the front of mind,” Derelle says. The ideal is to encourage staff to always consider sustainability; “instead of chucking something out, recycle it, or if you see a light on, turn it off.” The goal should be to switch ‘default behaviour’ towards a sustainability mindset.  

Business background
Placemakers is a nationwide chain that provides building products to tradespeople and home-owners throughout New Zealand. Placemakers Invercargill is a 7 day a week business, which employs 42 staff members. Operations Manager Derelle Polaschek explains that demand from the housing market is a significant factor affecting the success of Placemakers. If the housing market, or any commercial work occurring in Southland fluctuates, this has a flow-on effect to the bottom-line at Placemakers.  

What sustainability means at Placemakers Invercargill
The sustainability programme in place at Placemakers Invercargill is founded on the value of caring for the natural environment, ensuring that its resources can be preserved into the future. The business has an Environmental Policy which is displayed on-site and outlines how Placemakers Invercargill plans to reduce its ecological footprint.

A health and safety meeting is held every month and sustainability is included within each meeting agenda. As Derelle explains, “we’ve just made it another part of that so it is always ongoing, always at the front of mind.” All the Placemakers Invercargill staff members are engaged with sustainability now so, as Derelle says, it actually spills over to the home as well as within the workplace. 

Sustainability in action
Placemakers Invercargill was well-positioned for sustainability from the beginning as the building was purpose-built especially for the company. Several energy-saving design features were included, such as clear roof panels to provide natural lighting as well as manual controls for lighting and heating. By having control of the heating and lighting systems, Derelle and the Placemakers staff can use these systems only when and where they are actually needed. 

When Derelle began looking into sustainability in the business, she developed a monitoring sheet to record variables such as energy used, volume of waste sent to landfill and company vehicle usage. She notes that over time they have noticed positive changes in these sustainability indicators. Derelle says that the business’ biggest savings would be in electricity usage; “it’s probably gone to half of what we were using 2 years ago.” Staff are now very aware of turning off lights and heaters in areas not being used. The business has also changed electricity suppliers in order to receive a more competitive price.

Waste management is a big focus at Placemakers Invercargill. All cardboard and plastics are recycled, with a baler located on-site that bales the plastic together for transport to the recycling centre. As Derelle points out, “we don’t get anything for them taking away the cardboard, (but) it saves us having to pay someone to ... take it away to landfill.” The business also has a machine that cuts metal strapping used to bind the incoming timber up into small pieces; these are then sent to a local metal scrap merchant for re-use. 

All the wooden pallets acquired by the business that don’t need to be returned to the supplier are collected, chopped up and passed on to local families who need firewood through the winter. Placemakers Invercargill also has a paint recycling scheme in place that enables people with old paint to drop it off after which it gets sent to Christchurch for re-use. 

In the past Placemakers Invercargill were sending approximately 6 skips of waste a month to the landfill, they now only fill between 2 and 3 skips a month. As Derelle says, “that’s made a huge difference by doing our recycling which is a big cost saving for us as well.”

In addition to this, Placemakers Invercargill is actively involved in their local community and environment. The business contributes to stoat control programmes in Te Anau and on the Bluff Walkway. They have also added value to a wetland preservation project in Otarara by providing picnic tables for visitors to enjoy. Derelle explains that they see it as their responsibility to start looking after their natural environmental assets, and even to improve them, so that others are able to enjoy them in the future.

To assist with their implementation of these and other actions, Placemakers Invercargill partipate in the Enviro-Mark programme, delivered by Landcare Research. This programme involves on-site auditing of the sustainability actions in place, along with the associated paperwork and monitoring processes. These actions are assessed to ensure they are working effectively for the business because “it wasn’t just something that was going to be started one day and fall over the next ... it’s got to be an ongoing programme,” explains Derelle. Derelle and the team at Placemakers Invercargill started the programme approximately 3 years ago, and have now earned Enviro-Mark Gold (see http://www.enviro-mark.co.nz/ for more details).

Derelle reports that Fletcher Building (which owns the Placemakers stores) has now undertaken an environmental programme as well. As well as this, “other businesses in the Placemakers chain are very interested in what we’ve done ... so we hope to be able to spread the word,” Derelle says. Furthermore, a lot more businesses that Placemakers Invercargill supplies are now coming to them with more sustainable products to be used on building sites; further evidence that the business is having a positive influence on its industry peers.

Challenges involved in seeking sustainability
According to Derelle, the most significant challenge associated with sustainability at Placemakers Invercargill is time. It takes some commitment to increase staff awareness of the issues and to get them involved in the process. However, this commitment can be reduced over time. When Derelle first began implementing sustainability actions in the workplace, it took approximately 2 hours of her time each week. Now she only spends a couple of hours on sustainability-related work each month; mainly gathering and keeping the information up-to-date, as well as ensuring the processes involved are still working effectively.  

Advice for other businesses
Derelle recommends enlisting the support of all staff when aiming to improve sustainability performance. As she says, “if you don’t involve your whole workplace then it will fall over, everyone has to be involved.” The ideal is to encourage staff to always keep sustainability front-of-mind; “instead of chucking something out, recycle it, or if you see a light on, turn it off.” The goal should be to switch ‘default behaviour’ towards a sustainability mindset 

Involving the business in the Enviro-Mark programme was also a valuable step in the sustainability process. Derelle explains that working through this programme demonstrates that Placemakers Invercargill is serious about sustainability. It also represents a useful communication tool; “we use the Enviro-Mark logo on our emails and we have used it a couple of times (when) advertising in the newspaper,” Derelle says. During this process, Placemakers also engaged the services of a sustainability consultant. This consultant spent some time with Derelle and other staff every couple of months to ensure what they were doing was effective and that they were collecting the right information. Having someone with an external and neutral perspective to keep the business on track has been very useful.