Morgan Davies is our Materials Recycling Director. As part of our meet the team blog series, Morgan shares more about his role and what a typical working day looks like.
I’m awake just before 6am, and head downstairs with the dog to sort the kitchen out from the night before. With my children old enough to get themselves to school, I’m free to head off to work just after 7am. Depending on the traffic on the A27, I’m usually in the office before 8am, and settle myself with a cup of tea to check emails and our in-house systems to see what activity looked like from the day before.
I’m responsible for our Waste Recycling Enterprise – we have two sites in West Sussex and process up to 100,000 tonnes of green waste each year. We work with a range of organisations, including local authorities, national companies and trade landscapers, processing green waste into compost, topsoil and other garden products. With a move to sustainability and recycling it’s a busy and growing sector. As well as exploring new business opportunities I work closely with our key clients and support our Area Operations Manager in leading our 21 strong Waste Recycling team. We’re proud of our Quality and Environmental ISO standards – and another part of my role is ensuring we remain audit compliant.
The team dynamic
It’s great to work in such a lovely green space – in the Sussex countryside outside Chichester – and I enjoy collaborating with our people and being part a dynamic and successful team. Independence and trust are championed here so it’s great to be able to take full ownership of various projects and tasks – and then cascade that autonomy through the rest of the team.
Typically my time is spent reviewing various health, safety, quality and environmental management documents, updating statistics and KPIs and staying in close contact with our key clients. Alongside this I’ll manage PAS100 and ISO audits through the year, as well as keeping budgets updated and reporting on performance to the rest of the management team and the Board.
It’s been a much more stable few years, especially given the turbulence we saw at the start of the pandemic, and the significant increases in the cost of fuel. The past few years have seen us with a number of challenges including staff shortages and the political and socio-economic impacts faced by many organisations. And with both our compost production and farming operation there have been the inevitable issues caused by more extreme weather events. But we’ve learnt to adapt and overcome, and our strong team culture has certainly helped us navigate through tricky times.
Embracing wider responsibilities
Whilst I head up all things involving waste recycling and mainly focus on that area, as a Director I’m also heavily involved in our business-to-consumer division, called Earth Cycle. I keep a close eye on which products are selling, and quality control of our product range. And while I’m usually at my desk, there are regularly visits to the compost sites for scheduled meetings and catch ups.
Being in the office so much sometimes means it’s tricky to get my steps in every day, so I often run during my lunchbreak, aiming for at least 8km twice a week. With plenty of fields and trails around the office it makes for a good break. If the weather is against me I’ll use the gym!
Afternoons are usually set aside for other meetings, and I’ll thoroughly track and report on our financial and operational performance too. I keep a close eye on our health and safety and it’s also critical to keep up to date with the latest legislation for obvious reasons.
Before finishing I’ll check my calendar to see what’s planned for the next day – and make sure I’m well prepared. Then it’s back in the car and home!
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