Fiona Edwards – JPA Workspaces

Head of Sustainability, JPA Workspaces

Fiona has devoted her professional career to her family business, JPA Workspaces, where she has gained valuable on-the-job experience and adapted to evolving company needs by transitioning across various roles.

Her commitment to ISO14001 environmental standards led to the establishment of her role as Head of Sustainability in 2015, marking the beginning of the company's triple bottom line operation. This position represented a perfect fit for Fiona, reflecting her long-held career aspirations.

Fiona's extensive practical expertise is supported by her membership in MIEMA (Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment) and Chartered Environmental registration, enabling her to drive more strategic and purposeful business development initiatives.

In 2023, JPA Workspaces achieved a significant milestone when they were honoured with a King’s Award for Enterprise for Sustainable Development, one of only 15 awarded UK wide.

14:25-14:40

Content Zone Pathway to Net Zero

Net Zero Through Workspace Design

Up to 1.2million office desks and 1.8million still fit-for-task but simply out-of-fashion task chairs go to UK landfill every year. This results in the loss of potentially useful materials and resources, creating further emissions, pollution and nature degradation.  With much of this redundant furniture then replaced with new items, the outcome is further carbon emissions, waste, pollution, nature degradation and finite resource depletion.   

I’d like to share how a simple focus on SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production has helped our clients reduce furniture waste, carbon and pollution. This focus has also enabled clients to evidence sustainable procurement in action, generate baseline data for future carbon reduction and achieve significant budget savings.  

Using furniture resources already in place or those we are about to buy for twice as long means we can reduce embodied carbon and costs by 50%, a good first step towards Net Zero. 

13:00-13:10

Lecture Theatre My Net Zero Journey

Joining The Dots To Achieve Net Zero!

My Net Zero journey started when our largest client called a meeting in 2015 to ask what JPA Workspaces was doing about carbon reduction and sustainabilityEncountering a professionally qualified sustainability manager for the first time was a truly terrifying experience in 2015 but we had to respond with a plan - which we did, albeit very simpleWe began our sustainability adventure by focusing on environmental and waste issues which we already knew something about through ISO14001, joining the dots gradually as a larger sustainability picture formedNone of our other clients displayed any interest in environmental impact in the meantime but the arrival of Covid accelerated demand and indeed our own progress faster towards Net Zero than we had thought possible which is why I am here today sharing my experiences.