FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, ALTHOUGH WE WOULD PREFER IT WASN’T
Fenwick-Trundle Logistics Solutions Group today reaffirmed its unwavering commitment to reaching net zero, a phrase the company has agreed not to use, display or pronounce in any setting where it might be overheard by a regulator, a shareholder or a columnist.
The pledge was originally launched in 2021 with a six-page brochure, a sapling in the car park and a small but enthusiastic string quartet. It is now communicated exclusively by a laminated card kept in the second drawer of the facilities office, beneath a stapler and a spare lanyard. Staff wishing to consult the card must ask the facilities manager, who will nod if the card is still there.
A Measured Approach To Being Measured
The change follows a fourteen-month review of the company’s communications strategy, carried out by an external consultancy that asked not to be named in its own report. The review identified three risks in the previous approach: that the firm might be accused of overstating its progress, that it might be accused of understating it, and that somebody on the internet might have an opinion.
“We looked at the options very carefully. We could continue to publish our targets, but then people would check them. We could abandon the targets, but then people would notice. What we have settled on is a position of quiet, sincere and entirely private resolve.”
Helen Pargeter, Head of General Responsibility
Ms Pargeter, who was until March the Chief Sustainability Officer, said the old title had been found to be doing too much. Her new one was chosen after a workshop, three drafts and a brief conversation with Legal, and is understood to cover sustainability, but only in the sense that it also covers the fire exits.
The targets themselves have not been withdrawn. They have been rephrased, in internal documents, as “a broad aspiration to be fine”. The 2030 deadline now reads “in due course”, and the interim milestones are referred to as “bits”.
Colin Broadbent, the firm’s General Counsel, said the approach had been tested thoroughly. “You cannot be accused of greenwashing if you have not said anything that could be washed. We have removed the green, we have removed the washing, and as a precaution we have removed the cloth.”
Progress To Date
The company confirmed that emissions across its fleet of 212 vehicles have fallen by an amount it is not in a position to specify, following measures it is not in a position to describe. The sustainability section of the annual report has been reduced from forty pages to a single sentence, which reads “Things continue” and is set in nine-point type.
Keith Dunmore, the facilities manager, has taken on the verbal side of the commitment alongside his existing duties, which include the boiler, the franking machine and the lights at the Corby depot, which he now switches off in the evenings without comment. Asked whether the company remained dedicated to net zero, Mr Dunmore nodded. Pressed for a fuller statement, he said “Mm,” and went to look at a radiator.
About Fenwick-Trundle Logistics Solutions Group
Fenwick-Trundle Logistics Solutions Group is a mid-sized provider of logistics, warehousing and solutions, founded in Northampton in 1987 by the late Raymond Fenwick and, for reasons that have not been recorded, a Mr Trundle. The Group employs 840 people across eleven sites, most of which it can locate without difficulty. It is committed to sustainability, responsibility and general conduct, in no particular order and at no particular volume. For further information, please do not visit the website, which is currently under review.
Media Enquiries
Journalists are asked not to follow up on this release. Any enquiries received will be met with a nod, and the nod should not be taken as a quote.
