Following a company-wide beach clean at the three UK activity centres for Plastic Free Day on 8 May 2019, Rockley Watersports announced their five-year pledge to eliminate single-use plastics entirely from the business and significantly reduce their carbon footprint.
Rockley has assessed their impact on the environment and are pledging to take significant measures to ensure that they can do as much as possible to conserve and preserve the environment in which they live and work.
Rockley Watersports MD, Pip Woods spoke to staff and students at the beach clean about their five-year pledge: “As a company, we are becoming a lot more conscious of the actions we take both on a small and large scale. Why? Because every day approximately 8 million pieces of plastic pollution find their way into our oceans. Now every decision we make considers the impact it may have on our environment.
“Rockley welcomes over 10,000 students a year. A major part of our business is educating young people about Watersports and the outdoors and that is a lot of people we can send a message to or have some influence over. In five years, I want to be stood in front of my team saying that we have eliminated single use plastic from the business in its entirety and significantly reduced our carbon footprint.”
Announcing the company’s five-year environmental promise is another step in Rockley’s continued objectives to lead by example.
“We produce 35,000 lunches a year across our six centres in the UK and France. Previous to this year every one of those sandwiches got wrapped in clingfilm. When I think about it now it is absolutely disgusting. But we are making huge steps and even in the last two-month period we have managed to stop things that are going to make us use that amount of clingfilm, for one thing. It also includes that we are no longer selling plastic water bottles at our beachside café (2018 saw 5,000 bottles purchased) and instead encouraging individuals to refill their own bottles by using our newly installed water fountain.
“But this is just a tiny adjustment, we want to inspire others to share this message and create a desire in them to want to protect our environment. Our behaviours and cultures as a business are now what we need to really embrace. I truly believe that the small changes we are making will lead to a fundamental difference.”
As a company Rockley Watersports is committed to making an impactful change and have already seen a positive shift in attitude and activity amongst Rockley staff.