eddisonwhite is owned by Richard Eddison, a born and bred local with a 33-year property industry career in SW London. In 2004 he set up a residential sales, letting and property management business, now with 3 offices within Merton, striving to provide employment to local people, contracting other local businesses to provide services to our clients and continuing our support of the communities we live and work in.
Why is being sustainable important to you?
In a changing world, it is becoming more important for us as business owners, our clients and our staff to consider the impact of our daily actions, work to become more sustainable and for us to be a more ethical alternative to the traditional or corporate estate agents.
What are you currently doing to be more sustainable?
We’ve always looked at ways to reduce our environmental impact and for many years we have focussed on this goes down to the paper we use and less of it.
We are already signed up to Green Energy tariffs which guarantees 100% of our electricity is supplied by certified renewable sources.
We try to purchase environmentally friendly cleaning supplies for our premises in large volume containers so that there is reduced plastic bottle disposal.
We try to purchase environmentally friendly supplies such as recycled or bamboo loo roll and paper. We have planters outside our premises in Colliers Wood and try to plant seasonal plants to encourage bees and well-being.
We encourage our teams to reduce energy consumption through actions such as turning off PCs at night, keeping heating to a minimum when possible, walking to appointments and making warm drinks in the office; if they do purchase coffees on the go, we encourage them to use a reusable cup.
We are signed up to use First Mile for our business waste disposal and this is zero to landfill for general waste. We also use their paper recycling services when required.
We have put our window display lighting on timers so they automatically turn off throughout the night.
Back in 2018 we purchased an electric bicycle which is used by the team to do trips between branches, get to appointments in the area and reduce car usage for short trips.
When we had our ‘company’ dog, Hudson, who passed away in May 2022, he even made changes to help the environment and reduced his own carbon pawprint! He converted to a natural, digestible and sustainable complete insect protein diet (black soldier fly) with recyclable packaging 💚
What environmental issues particularly resonate with your business?
We seek to reduce our traditional print marketing paper costs by utilising digital alternatives, reduce our electricity consumption and continue to increase our recycling.
In 2015 we started a small project of purchasing and planting lavender at the base of trees on a local residential road. This was to attract more insects and bees, bring a beautiful scent and brighten up the roads. Tom Walsh (Founder of Sustainable Merton) was part of this initiative with us! Since then, we have repeated this on a large scale and we have noticed that there are now many more similar projects going on throughout the borough. In 2021, we purchased £700 worth of plants and invited residents to safely gather during the pandemic to plant up their roads.
What are your long-term/short-term sustainability objectives?
Short-term – Digitise as many of our services and paper trails, reduce electricity consumption.
Long-term – Communicate with our tenant database to improve their impact on the local area. Through Government legislation, assist our Landlords in improving the energy efficiency of their properties.
Why would you encourage other businesses to become a Business Champion?
Everyone including small businesses can do their bit by addressing their environmental impact. If we can learn to communicate collectively with a clear message, change can happen.
Richard Eddison
Managing Director/Owner
Find out more about becoming a Business Champion HERE!
