Matthew Brabin is chief executive of PHS, the washroom cleaning and hygiene group based in Caerphilly. He tells Insider editor Douglas Friedli about the company's plans to reduce the environmental impact of its deliveries, and about its campaign to get more facilities for men to change incontinence products across the UK.
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00:00Hi, I'm Matthew Brabin and I'm the Chief Executive Officer of PHS Group.
00:05We are a large washroom and hygiene and specialist services business that operates across the UK, Ireland and Spain.
00:14Our largest service area is in hygiene where we provide washroom services, matting services and waste management services to thousands of customers across the whole of the country.
00:27So I've occasionally seen PHS vans, PHS vehicles around. How many of those are out there?
00:34Across our different service lines we have about 1,900 vehicles on the road every day with the largest single fleet being in washroom where we have 640 vehicles.
00:46What we're increasingly trying to do is to increase the proportion of the vehicles that are powered by electricity rather than by diesel.
00:54At the moment we've got about 75 electrically powered washroom vehicles in operation and we have electrical charging points in all of our depots across the country.
01:07We're looking to evolve that a little bit as well, both increasing the proportion of electric vans but also starting to introduce what we refer to as e-cargo bikes
01:17which are electrically powered bikes, a little bit like a tuk-tuk that can go in cycle lanes and are fantastic for providing services in city centres.
01:30We've also started to introduce on-foot operators who can also provide their services in their city centres.
01:37We think it's more efficient but also there's a very powerful ESG story that supports that.
01:44We're keen to reduce the number of diesel powered vehicles and therefore reduce our carbon footprint.
01:51How far do you think you can go with that with the individual operators?
01:57I think in the medium term we think that we might be able to get to nearly 25% of our operatives on foot, 25% in e-cargo type operations and 50% in the more traditional washroom vehicle.
02:15But an ever increasing proportion of them being powered by electricity rather than by diesel.
02:19The biggest constraints at the moment we have around that is the charging infrastructure across the UK.
02:25Yes we can charge from our depots but most of our washroom technicians are home based and they don't have easy access to charging points.
02:34I understand you've got a campaign called Bog Standard, can you tell us a little bit about what that is?
02:41We started a male incontinence campaign in May last year where we thought there was a real need to provide facilities for men to be able to change their incontinence products in public places with dignity and being confident that it would work.
03:03We did that in conjunction with Prostate Cancer UK.
03:07We've now got about 12,000 male incontinence bins out across the UK and we feel that the next natural progression from that is what we've referred to as the Bog Standard.
03:17Where we are accrediting pubs, restaurants, sports stadiums with a Bog Standard certificate which is an indication that there are facilities in that establishment where men can change their incontinence products with confidence and dignity.
03:36Because we've found through our research that many men who suffer from incontinence are reluctant to leave their home because they don't know where they'll be able to change their products should they have the need at short notice.
03:48The work that we've done with Prostate Cancer UK on male incontinence and now increasingly with the Bog Standard certificates is providing a map of where individuals who suffer from incontinence can change their products with confidence.
04:02I understand that PHS has got a bit of a track record in this. You've been leading a bit on period equality. Do you want to say how far you got with that?
04:10We started doing our period equality work in 2019. We've written a series of white papers. We're in the all party parliamentary committee on period equality.
04:27We now work with the DFA to provide free period products to all women and girls in schools across the UK in about 20,000 schools.
04:42Great. Finally, PHS, huge business, lots of people, lots of vehicles, lots of products. What makes it all hang together? What makes it make sense?
04:52What really makes it make sense is its people. We see our purpose as putting people at the heart of all of our products and our services. We have 3,500 people in our business. Without our people we wouldn't have a business. They're absolutely at the heart of everything that we do.