Creating a Buzz About Sustainability With Beehive Initiative

MSP – a leading manufacturer of stampings and springs – is swarming with sustainable ideas to create positive changes to the environment.

Their MSBees programme has seen the company welcome a hive of bees to its head office in Worcestershire. The Queen and her worker-bees were delivered in May, with MSP’s staff and senior management team taking responsibility for the hive. 

“Can you imagine if a tenth of all businesses in the UK took up one single initiative, however small, what an incredible difference that would make to our environment.” Neil Matthews, Managing Director, MSP

Bees and other pollinating insects are indispensable for guaranteeing biodiversity and achieving sustainable development goals. However, they seriously risk extinction. 

Neil Matthews, Managing Director, MSP, says: “We hope that this initiative will help focus attention on the essential role that bees and other pollinators play in maintaining the health of people and of our planet.

“As a company we look for any opportunity to make a difference not just to the environment but to our employees and local community. We thought this was an unusual but great idea.”The reduction in global bee populations is threatening the pollination benefits to both the planet and people. Bees play a major role in achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the pollinators are essential to feeding a growing world population in a sustainable way and to maintain biodiversity and an active and productive ecosystem.

This is just one example of the unique and challenging projects MSP has been undertaking in its day-to-day business to put sustainability at the heart of everything they do.  

Neil says: “At MSP we take the future of our planet seriously. We all impact the environment every day and any way we, as a business, can make a difference is really important to our corporate social responsibility.

“This isn’t just about offsetting our own carbon emissions, it’s more about us giving something back to the environment and improving our sustainability. It doesn’t just stop with the environment, but also to our team and local community.

Neil said: “It’s caused real excitement within the company and we are looking forward to learning the process of beekeeping. The whole team has really embraced the bee project and some have even committed to purchasing their own beehives for their gardens.”

MSP has a dedicated Sustainability Team that meets regularly to discuss ideas and projects to improve sustainability and support the local community. The team has a budget available to allow them to implement initiatives such as MSBees.

Several members of the team have also recently undertaken Carbon Literacy Training to help the MSP Sustainability Team further improve their awareness of the carbon costs of everyday activities. The Carbon Literacy Training has helped to further embed sustainability within the organisation and has provided members of the team with the tools they need to continue MSP’s sustainable initiatives.

Neil says: “We encourage all of our employees to come up with ideas and put them to the Senior Management Team. We have found that our staff are more engaged and enthused by what we’re trying to achieve, because this important message of sustainability now runs through everything we do.

“The team has come up with so many ideas, it is just a matter of prioritising them. We have really seen a snowball effect with our sustainability idea generation. The more initiatives we do, the more people see what and why we are doing it and they are encouraged to bring their own thoughts to the table.” – Neil.

In a competitive business place where most organisations and manufacturers are only interested in the bottom line, Neil believes that MSP can lead the way as an example of what can be done to make a difference to the manufacturing industry. 

He said: “If the government could present ideas and show initiatives that have already been put in place and have made a difference, I am sure more companies will want to follow suit. 

“It doesn’t take too much time in the working day to make a difference but we have seen that sustainability projects can give back tenfold to the environment, employees and local communities.”