As part of the tender process for a 2-year contract for office furniture, suppliers were required to submit statements about their environmental performance and practices. Ogilvie Ross were commissioned to create a scoring system to evaluate the tender responses and grade each tenderer against a number of pre-defined criteria including product design, manufacturing processes, transportation, packaging and waste management. The final report identified those manufacturers and suppliers that had made real progress in developing long-term sustainable strategies and showed significant commitment to reducing environmental impact.

An 18-month program to design and project manage the refurbishment of offices for 110 staff within the Environment Services department. The project had very strict sustainable criteria from the outset including complete reuse of all furniture to ensure minimal waste was sent to landfill. The finished office increased staff occupancy by 15% and was completed for less than 30% of the budgeted cost when compared to similar previous projects where new furniture was purchased. Additional benefits were improved access to local archive storage, improved inter-departmental communication, increased natural daylight and improved airflow.

In order to develop long-term recycling strategies for general waste from Council buildings, Ogilvie Ross was commissioned to carry out a series of waste audits during February 2005. The collated data was then used to create a series of waste minimisation plans. As a result of the initial findings it has been proposed that Ogilvie Ross devise an educational version of the waste audit process that can be taken into secondary schools to show children the level of recyclable waste generated within their school and help them to create their own recycling systems and encourage greater awareness of environmental issues.

Ogilvie Ross was asked to investigate the volume of waste timber disposed of at the public recycling centres across Perth & Kinross and to put forward options for recycling. Detailed audits of the 8 main recycling centres identified that there was over 15,000 tonnes of waste timber disposed of via the community recycling centres annually. The report highlighted not only the environmental benefits that could be achieved but also the full cost analysis of each recycling system and the expected tonnages that could be recovered.