One of the country’s leading small animal hospitals has earned national recognition for its eco-friendly practices and sustainability programme.

Southfields Veterinary Specialists in Basildon has received a silver award from Investors in the Environment (iiE), the national accreditation scheme for businesses working to reduce their carbon footprint.

The iiE’s sustainability audit highlighted “excellent reductions” in resources at Southfields, despite the Linnaeus-owned referral centre’s recent move to a new, enlarged £16 million hospital.

It said: “The team at Southfields Veterinary Specialists have made good progress this year and achieved some excellent reductions in resource use despite an expansion of the practice and move to a new site.

“This is a great achievement especially considering the challenges they have faced from the move to the new site in the last few months.

“Since the move, Southfields has considerably improved data collection methods, with monthly meter reads now taken for gas, electricity and water.

“This will help to ensure the organisation has a robust baseline year of data going forwards and accurate comparisons and analysis of performance can be made.

“Southfields’ ‘Green Champion’ Kathryn Witney has also presented an excellent understanding of performance and future target setting, with good knowledge of what will support target achievement and what the barriers may be.”

Kathryn is delighted with the silver award and is already planning to move to the next level, with the hospital going for gold!

She said: “It is a fabulous result when you consider we only moved into our new hospital last summer.

“It’s a much bigger building than our previous centre and there has been an increase in staffing levels, too, so it’s been a huge learning curve to monitor and analyse the hospital’s energy performance and see where we’ve done well and where we need to improve.

“To gain a silver iiE award so soon after opening our doors is a tribute to everyone at Southfields and shows the whole team’s commitment to reduce emissions and cut waste.

“We know we can do even better, though, and our aim is to now work towards achieving the ultimate accolade, a coveted iiE Green award.”

Southfields, which moved into its state-of-the-art £16 million animal hospital in Basildon last summer, offers specialist services such as anaesthesia and analgesia, cardiology, dentistry, dermatology, diagnostic imaging, exotics, internal medicine, neurology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, radiation and soft tissue surgery.

For more information, go to www.southfields.co.uk or search Southfields Veterinary Specialists on social media.