Corporate and social responsibility
Much of the work Fera undertakes is rooted in the principles of sustainability and responsibility, both of which we embrace in the way we do business.
Corporate Responsibility
Fera has a proactive Environmental Management System in place that is certified to the ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management System Standard. In addition our procurement policies and procedures are aligned with Defra's Sustainable Procurement Strategy.
Here are just a few examples of our Environmental Management System in operation.
- a significant reduction in energy and carbon emissions has been achieved across our site at Sand Hutton
- to further reduce consumption and emissions we are installing a combined heat and power plant
- a pilot study is underway to examine ways of reducing hazardous waste
- waste materials from our sites are recycled wherever possible. This ranges from bailing and recycling cardboard, to recycle points in the catering facilities for cans and plastic cups. We have also negotiated with our chemical suppliers that our used chemical containers are recovered and reused
- Our Sand Hutton site also has a biodiversity action plan in place which covers management of its 32 hectares, these grounds being home to a wide range of flora and fauna including wild orchids
Our Environmental Policy is available to download.
Support for Education
Fera runs an education liaison programme, which ties together the joint objectives of putting something back into the community and making science more accessible to young people.
The programme is about making science attainable, relevant, challenging and interesting. Examples of activities include:
- Workshops for National Science Discovery Days, BA Festival of Science and School Science Enrichment Days
- Development of resources to support science teaching e.g. 'Battling Beetles & Irritating Invertebrates' CD-Roms
- Bringing experts and students together to share knowledge and have fun with science e.g. mini-beast hunting and classification, science debates and guest lectures
For more information contact .
Access to information
As a public body, The Food and Environment Research Agency has certain duties and obligations in relation to provision of information. One of these being to provide easy access to information resources produced, held and used by the Agency.
Fera is currently working to produce a revised publication scheme to cover the full range of the Agency's activities following its vesting on 1 April 2009. This will be published in September 2009 at which time it will be made available to download on this website.
The merging bodies that came together to form Fera (Central Science Laboratory, Defra's Plant Health Division including Plant Health and Seeds Inspectorate, Defra's Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division and the UK Government Decontamination Service) each produced a publication scheme document.
The new Fera publication scheme will bring together the information that remains relevant to the new Agency from each of these documents. It is anticipated that most of the content will be relevant and as the existing documents remain compliant with the Freedom of Information Act 2000, links to each of the documents are available below:
- Fera publication scheme
- Defra publication scheme (covers Defra's Plant Health Division, Defra's Plant Variety Rights Office and Seeds Division and UK Government Decontaminantion Service)
If you would like more information about the above documents or Fera's publication scheme, please email .
Some of our work depends on collecting and storing information relevant to individuals. The way we use and store these data is covered by the Public Service Guarantee on Data Handling.
- Explanation of the promises in the Guarantee
- Gwarant Gwasanaethau Cyhoeddus ar Drin Data
- Esboniad o'r Addewidion yn y Warant
Fera complies with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoIA). If you have a FoIA enquiry you would like Fera to consider, please .