Ginormous birthday cake

On Thursday 30^th June, past and present employees, associates, clients and friends of the company joined together to celebrate Sauce’s 5^th birthday.

Over (plenty of!) drinks, nibbles and a ginormous birthday cake, everyone enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate the fact that this small business is going from strength to strength despite the challenging economic times. Over the past five years, Sauce has rapidly expanded and now counts some of the country’s leading waste and construction companies as its clients.

John Twitchen, Managing Director of Sauce toasted the company’s success and said, “It is a very exciting time to be working in this growing industry.

John makes a birthday speech

At this major milestone for a small company, we sincerely hope to be able to continue serving our fabulous clients for the next five years… and beyond!”

Sauce and Icaro’s latest research report for Consumer Focus, which looks at Energy Performance Certificates and considers the Government’s proposed ‘Green Deal’, has just been published (30 June 2011). With huge hikes in energy bills, this timely research has highlighted the major opportunity presented simply by making a complex form much more consumer oriented. At the moment, the certificate is confusing and creates a barrier to homeowners saving money and reducing their emissions – in conjunction with our design partner DTW, we’ve demonstrated how simple, effective design will increase access to information. With the introduction of the Green Deal scheduled for next year, improving the EPC must happen if we’re serious about reducing the financial and environmental costs of running homes as well as businesses.

The report can be found here: http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/files/2011/06/Easy-as-EPC-WEB.pdf

More information on the Green Deal can be found here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/tackling/green_deal/green_deal.aspx

Icaro Consulting www.icaro-consulting.co.uk

The Sauce team slipped on their walking shoes and embraced the challenge of Walk to Work Week (9 – 15 May 2011).

The challenge began with the team following their normal routes to work but as the week progressed, the Sauce team were more adventurous and found new and varied paths to take. Nicki even ran to work all the way from Walthamstow! Popular London sites were strolled past including the London Eye, Waterloo Bridge and Somerset House and Paula enjoyed the beautiful Norfolk countryside.

The incentive to walk more each day grew throughout the week – as did the number of muffins we were therefore allowed to consume! For photographs of the week’s adventures, visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sauce-Consultancy/113520188009.

In total, the Sauce team walked 128 miles, burned 23.2 muffins and saved 18.9 kg of CO2!

February saw Sauce Consultancy into its sixth year in business and continuing to build on the strengths of the previous years. The company has shown strong growth year on year, in line with that seen by the environmental services sector, with 2011 looking to be a busy and rewarding year ahead. Sauce’s strength is in the depth of knowledge it is able to bring to clients, in particular smaller firms that have expanded into multi-million pound operations relatively quickly, and new market entrants attracted by strong legislative and financial drivers. At this major milestone for a small company, we sincerely hope to be able to continue serving our clients for the next five years… and beyond!

On the highlights of the last five years and looking ahead, John Twitchen, Sauce MD, comments ‘It has been a great pleasure to work with such a diverse range of organisations over the last five years, the vast majority of which we are still working with. Looking ahead, our strategy is based on doing more of the same – high quality, cost effective, tailored support based on the highest levels of expertise and first class communication skills. Sauce’s mantra ‘Action speaks louder than words’ has never been more appropriate than as today and continues to drive our approach.’

Sauce will be celebrating its sixth year in style come the summer – details TBC!

People who know Sauce know that we don’t like the term NIMBY – Not In My Back Yard, a response to proposals to build something, anything, near you. But this is not always the case, you just have to try very hard to talk to people, be available, explain it.

Some say the Localism Bill is a charter for NIMBYs… we say “no it’s not!”

The recently announced Localism Bill reads like an initiative overload, but cut through the noise and there are some very interesting components.

Whilst the Bill reduces, reuses and recycles old policies and principles from the last ten years, in particular the solid foundations of the Local Democracy etc Act, it also recovers a fairly large chunk of responsibility and moves it onto local communities, in particular Parish and Town Councils, who can draw up their own local plans (after jumping through several hoops, and incurring a fair bit of cost). Read more »

Sauce is delighted to have our efforts to be a more sustainable business recognised through achieving the bronze level of the Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code.

The Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code is a support service for organisations committed to reducing their environmental impact through responsible purchasing. The Green Procurement Code provides practical advice and support to introduce green purchasing into all aspects of an organisation, including sourcing green products. Since its launch in 2001, members have spent £548.7 million on recycled products, diverted 1.8 million tonnes of waste from landfill and saved 391,000 tonnes of C02 emissions. The programme is supported by the London Development Agency and delivered by LRS Consultancy.

Becky Borrow, Head of Operations at Sauce, says “We work very hard to reduce our environmental impact as a business and we are proud to be part of the Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code and to have achieved the bronze level this year. The challenge is now to improve our performance even further over the next 12 months as our aim is to achieve silver in 2012!”

See www.greenprocurementcode.co.uk for further details.