The manager of a Lanarkshire business hub has introduced on-site bee keeping as part of an ongoing commitment to creating sustainable workplaces.
The partnership between HFD Property Management Services and Plan Bee at Strathclyde Business Park aims to protect and preserve honeybees.
The business hub is now home to four beehives and up to 500,000 bees, with members of staff, school groups and the local community invited to get involved with the bee keeping and honey making process. Employees will also be able to sample honey taken from the bees.
As pollinators, bees play a crucial role in the ecosystem but they face an ongoing threat from changing land use and habitat loss. The wider sustainable focus for the park includes electric car charging points and increased bike storage facilities.
Alison Bell, operations manager at Plan Bee, said: “It’s great to work with forward-thinking, eco-conscious companies to address some of the pressing environmental concerns that affect us all and to create a generation of biodiversity champions. The collaborative partnerships at Strathclyde Business Park demonstrate how businesses can work together to make a positive impact, even greater than the sum of their parts.
"Although, we are just at the beginning of a long-term partnership; we’ve really set a benchmark for how companies can look after their environment, their people and the communities in which they work.”
Rosemary Hill, managing director at HFD Property Management Services, added: “It’s important that we work together to make sustainability a focus for the whole community, including the 6,000 employees that work at the park. We’re working on an ongoing programme of initiatives to offset our carbon footprint and create a sustainable working environment.
"We’re excited to see how the partnership with Plan Bee progresses and, with scope to introduce more beehives in future, we hope that this is just the first step in supporting the local ecosystem.”
