Thomas Graham has achieved accreditation in international standards for its environment and health and safety management.

The steel stockholding and industrial supplies firm, which has branches across the county including in Carlisle and Egremont, has spent months working towards the three ISO standards.

Phil Barnes, operations director at Thomas Graham, said: “We are extremely proud of what we have achieved over the last 12 months.

“Gaining these standards sends a strong message that we are striving to constantly improve the quality of our service as well as operating responsibly and continue to be fully compliant.”

“As a growing family firm we have recognised the need to improve our internal systems which led to the project to develop our ISO9001:2008 QA system to the 2015 version then follow on with ISO14001 and ISO45001.”

The company said: "Achieving these international standards continues our plan to develop and improve the business in order to meet the high customer expectations of corporate responsibility as well as our legal and regulatory requirements.

"The next part of this plan is to embed these standards in the fabric of the company for the benefit of our staff, customers and suppliers as well as the local community through having a safer, more environmentally sustainable business."