Sustainability

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The VDS Green Team

Championing sustainability across the Veterinary Defence Society

For 160 years, the VDS has protected and supported veterinary professionals. As the world changes, so does our responsibility. The future of veterinary practice is deeply connected to the future of our planet, and sustainability is now a natural extension of our mission and values.

The VDS Green Team was created in 2021 to lead this commitment. Bringing together passionate colleagues from across the organisation, the team plays a central role in embedding environmental, social and ethical responsibility into everything we do.

Who we are

The Green Team is a cross‑functional group of colleagues committed to driving sustainability forward, both within the VDS and across the veterinary professions.

Our purpose is simple:

• To ensure our operations, decisions and culture reflect our responsibility to the planet and the people we serve.

We focus on collaboration, improving awareness, and helping colleagues and members make meaningful, practical changes. Find out more within our Environmental Policy:

→ Environmental Policy

“Embracing sustainability is not just an obligation, but a responsibility and a choice, which we have proudly taken. We are working towards a thriving future for veterinary professionals, practices, and the environment we all share."

Joanne Stonehewer MRCVS, Director of Membership, VDS

What we do

We lead our sustainability strategy and coordinate the activity that helps us reduce our impact, work more responsibly and contribute positively to our communities.

Reducing our carbon impact

We are committed to a credible and achievable Net Zero pathway grounded in accurate data and meaningful reductions.

Our focus includes:

• Reducing emissions at the source
• Improving the accuracy and breadth of our carbon reporting
• Supporting colleagues to make lower‑impact choices
• Using high‑quality offsetting, only where unavoidable

We are proud to be a carbon neutral organisation, which entails offsetting our remaining emissions through verified global projects in Brazil, Cambodia and the Amazon rainforest.

Discover more on what being ‘Net Zero’ entails and how the VDS commits to achieve this:

→ Net Zero Commitment

Improving how we work

We’ve strengthened our internal operations and policies to minimise our footprint and encourage responsible behaviour across the organisation.

This includes:

• Sustainable food procurement
• Expanded recycling, reducing printing and waste management
• Volunteering opportunities that support environmental and community projects
• Awareness of lower-impact business travel, car-sharing and other and low‑emission options

VDS colleagues volunteering at the 'Bread and Butter Thing' in Manchester, May 2025

Supporting our communities

Our sustainability work includes social responsibility. We support Vetlife, IVBF and our annual charities, most recently Variety, Macmillan, Save the Children and The Welcome. Find out more about our charitable work:

→ Benevolence

Our Achievements

Since launching our sustainability programme in 2019, we’ve expanded what we measure, improved the quality of our data and strengthened our environmental performance.

This work has been recognised with four consecutive years of Investors in the Environment (iiE) Green Accreditation, the highest level.

Read more about how the VDS are committing to sustainability in our sustainability impact report:

→ VDS Sustainability Impact Report

Our 2025 market-based carbon footprint was 101 tonnes of CO₂e, compared to 112 tonnes in 2024 — a 10% year‑on‑year reduction. This progress was supported by ongoing measurement and management of the following resource areas:

Water usage

Water usage down 0.5% compared to 2024

Electricity usage

Electricity usage down 30%* compared to 2024

Paper usage

Paper Usage up 16%** compared to 2024

Mileage

Mileage 3% increase compared to 2024

*Decrease in electricity usage this year was driven by our in-house servers moving to a cloud-hosted data centre infrastructure, reducing our overall energy consumption.

**Increase due to a mid-year change in our member segmentation operational communications, which saw the introduction of our RVN member newsletter.

In 2025, we also:

• Planted 509 trees, bringing our total number of trees planted to 1,982 since November 2022.
• Arranged CPD for VDS colleagues to raise awareness of carbon emissions in travel and working from home to support the reduction of our global footprint.
• Assessed our colleagues' working from home requirements to further measure our impact on the environment.
• Took part in an IT kit amnesty, recycling old IT equipment to further reduce waste.
• Increased VDS colleague initiatives including an electric car scheme and cycle to work scheme.
• Arranged collection and delivery of warm clothing and coats for adults and children to support local charities.
• Promoted a volunteer day for all VDS colleagues and to support local charities and initiatives.
• Commenced a supplier audit, investigating their green credentials to ensure, where possible, the VDS are utilising suppliers that have a positive impact on the environment.
• Completed a full internal waste audit at our main office.