Ameresco.com Privacy Policy
Your privacy, and the privacy of all registered users of ameresco.com, is important to us. Accordingly, we have adopted the following privacy policy. Our policy is based on the principles of notice, choice, access and security in the collection and use of all information regarding our users and their activities at our site.
1. Notice
This policy tells you, among other things, what information we gather from you, how we may use or disclose that information and our efforts to protect it. Please read this policy carefully, and feel free to contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions regarding its contents.
Types of Information Collected
In connection with your use of our site, we ask for and may collect a variety of information from and about you in different ways. For example, when you register to use our site, we ask for and store your and/or your business’ name, address, email address and other identifying contact data. In addition, we collect resumes, utility bills, energy usage data, vendor information, etc. We may also collect the information you disclose in any of our chat rooms, discussion groups and bulletin boards.
Use of Cookies
Use of our site requires that you accept the use of cookies, which are small data files that our website sends to your browser for storage on your computer’s hard drive. We use cookies to protect confidential data, track activity at our site and better serve your needs and interests.
Use of Information
We use your personally identifying information to identify or register you as a user of the site and to enable or authorize you to access and submit information and data to the site. We may use your email address to contact you directly regarding services or products that we believe may be of interest to you. We may also associate your personally identifying information with information we collect about your preferences and activities at the site, such as the particular pages you request at the site. We may vary the content you receive in future visits to the site based on your preferences and activities.
We may combine your personally identifying information, and information about your preferences and activities, with those of all or a particular group of our users to prepare collective profiles of our users and their activities. For example, we may track the number of our users who view certain pages. Such information, and other information we derive from individual users’ information, allows us to continually improve the site.
Disclosure of Information
We may provide your personally identifying information, and information about your activities and preferences, to other companies wishing to contact you about products or services, but only to those that we believe impose reasonable safeguards on the privacy of your information. We may also provide third parties with collective profiles of our user groups and their activities and preferences. Such collective profiles may also be disclosed in describing our site and services to prospective partners, advertisers and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.
Finally, we may disclose information to fulfill certain legal and regulatory requirements or if we believe, in good faith, that such disclosure is legally required or necessary to protect others’ rights or to prevent harm.
2. Choice
You may choose to restrict our use of your information to maintaining your account on the site, or prohibit our disclosure of your information to others, by contacting us and directing us to impose such limits. If you do not wish us to provide your information to third parties, or otherwise wish us to restrict the use or disclosure of your information, please send us an e-mail at [email protected].
In addition, we will not send unsolicited messages to users of our site who indicate that they do not wish to receive such messages. If you do not wish to receive unsolicited email messages from us, please contact us at [email protected].
3. Access
At any time after you have logged on to our site, you may contact us at [email protected] to request access to information we have collected regarding you or your business or to notify us of changes to such information. If you request any such changes, we will contact you by email or fax to confirm those changes. Once confirmed, any new item of information will replace the corresponding information previously provided.
4. Security
We use industry-standard encryption methods to transmit your personal registration information and other data uploaded by you to our site from your computer to ours across the Internet, and we restrict access to any transactional portions of our site to computers running web browsers that support Secure Socket Layer (“SSL”) protocol. To use this protection technology, you need to have SSL-capable browser.
Please remember that you play a valuable part in security as well. Your password to access our password protected portions of our site should never be shared with anyone and should be changed frequently. And, after you have finished using our site, you should log off and exit your browser so no unauthorized persons can use our site with your name and account information. Remember that any information you voluntarily disclose on-line may be collected and used by others without your permission. Furthermore, if you provide any information to parties who operate websites that are linked to or from our site, different rules may apply to their collection, use or disclosure of your personal information. We encourage you to review these sites’ policies before revealing any sensitive or personal information.
Regardless of the precautions taken by you or by us, “perfect security” does not exist on the Internet. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you transmit such information at your own risk.
Changes to Privacy Policy.
It may be necessary from time to time for us to modify this policy to reflect changes in the way we collect and use information or changes in privacy-related laws, regulations, and industry standards. Accordingly, we reserve the right to change this policy at any time by posting the revised policy on this website. This policy was posted on July 1, 2010. Data will be handled in accordance with the policy in effect at the time the data is used, subject to the user’s right to opt out of revisions to this policy implemented since the data was first collected.
Additional Privacy Policy for European Union visitors
https://www.ameresco.com/ is a site operated by Ameresco, Inc. and its UK subsidiary, Ameresco Limited. This privacy policy relates to the activities of Ameresco Limited. For Ameresco, Inc.’s privacy policy, please go to https://www.ameresco.com/privacy-policy/. (Opens in new window.)
We are a company registered in England and Wales under company number 06614239. Our main trading address is Wesley House, 5 Wesley Street, Castleford, West Yorkshire WF10 1JG.
We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We are responsible for protecting your personal information as a “data controller” under applicable data protection legislation. If you have any queries about this Policy or how we use your personal information, please contact us at [email protected].
This policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting our website you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.
Our nominated person for data protection is the Head of the IT Department and their contact details are [email protected].
2. What information do we collect?
We collect personal data as defined by applicable data protection legislation (‘personal information’).
We collect information about our business customers. The personal information we collect might include name, title, company, email address, postal address, telephone number of the individual contact(s) at that customer’s business, and areas of interest in working with Ameresco (i.e., forms request details about areas of interest so we can better serve your requirements.)
3. How do we collect information?
We obtain personal information from you when you use our website, submit a form, enquire about our activities, send or receive an email, ask a question or otherwise provide us with personal information.
We may also collect technical information relating to your use of our website, including your browser type or the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet.
We also gather general information about the use of our website, such as which pages users visit most often and which services, events or facilities are of most interest. We may also track which pages users visit when they click on links in emails. We may use this information to personalise the way our website is presented when users visit, to make improvements to our website and to ensure we provide the best service for users. Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our website.
We may also receive information about you from third parties, for example from an email list, conferences, tradeshows, events, associations, organizations, memberships, referrals or from individuals or third party organisations who share our interests and may introduce you to us.
4. Why do we collect this information?
We collect this information for the purposes described in paragraph 5. The lawful basis for which we process your information is:
- your consent; or
- processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party. If you fail to provide this information we may be unable to perform the contract.
5. How do we use this information?
We will use your personal information:
- to provide you with services, products or information you have requested;
- to provide you with updates and information about future products and services we think may be of interest to you, including third party products and services; and
- to notify you about changes to our services; as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure; and to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
We will only use your personal information for electronic marketing purposes if we are allowed to do this by law or if we have your consent. If you agree to us providing you with marketing information, you can always opt out at a later date.
6. Do we share your information with anyone else?
We may compile and share your personal information ‘in aggregate’ with our website vendor for data analysis purposes to enhance and improve the website.
We may need to provide your information to our contractors and suppliers who provide services on our behalf, to the extent necessary to enable you to receive those services.
We may also need to disclose your information if required to do so by law or as expressly permitted under applicable data protection legislation.
7. How long do we keep your information for?
We keep your information for no longer than is necessary, as set out in our Data Retention Policy. We will retain your information for any period required by law, for example for compliance with HMRC requirements. Where we are not under a legal obligation to retain your information, we will determine what is necessary by reference to the lawful basis for processing set out above and our legitimate interests.
If you have any questions about how long we keep your information, please write to us at [email protected].
8. How do we protect personal information?
We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that the information disclosed to us is kept secure, accurate and up to date and kept only for so long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is used. We protect your information in accordance with our IT Security Policy.
You should be aware that the use of the Internet is not entirely secure and although we will do our best to protect your personal data we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal information which is transferred from you or to you via the Internet. Any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features such as encryption to try to prevent unauthorised access.
9. Your Rights
You have a right to ask us to confirm whether we are processing information about you, and to request access to this information (‘right of access’).
You may ask us, or we may ask you, to rectify information you or we think is inaccurate, and you may also ask us to remove information which is inaccurate or complete information which is incomplete (‘right to rectification’). If you inform us that your personal data is inaccurate, we will inform relevant third parties with whom we have shared your data so they may update their own records.
We want to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. If any of the information that you have provided us with changes, for example if you change your email address, name, payment details, or if you wish to cancel your registration, please let us know by contacting [email protected].
You have a right to obtain your personal data from us and reuse it for your own purposes, perhaps for another service, without hindering the usability of the data (‘right of portability’). This right does not apply where processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us.
You have a right to seek the erasure of your data (often referred to as the ‘right to be forgotten’). You may wish to exercise this right for any reason, for example where it is no longer necessary for us to continue holding or processing your personal data you may withdraw your consent. You should note that we are entitled to and reserve the right to retain your data for statistical purposes. This right is not absolute, as we may need to continue processing this information, for example, to comply with our legal obligations, or for reasons of public interest.
You have a right to ask us to restrict our processing of your information (‘right to restriction’) if:
- you contest its accuracy and we need to verify whether it is accurate
- the processing is unlawful, and you ask us to restrict use of it instead of erasing it
- we no longer need the information for the purpose of processing, but you need it to establish or defend legal claims
- you have objected to processing of your information being necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest, or for the purposes of our legitimate interests. The restriction would apply while we carry out a balancing act between your rights and our legitimate interests.
- you exercise your right to restrict processing, we would still need to process your information for the purpose of exercising or defending legal claims, protecting the rights of another person or for public interest reasons.
You have a right to prevent us from processing your data for the purposes of marketing.
If you would like to exercise any of your rights above, please let us know by contacting [email protected]. We will act in accordance with your instructions as soon as reasonably possible and there will be no charge.
You have a right to report any of your concerns about our use of your data to the relevant supervisory authority in your jurisdiction.
10. Cookies
‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information stored on the hard drive of a user’s computer which contain information about the user. The information is used to track a visitor’s use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity.
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
We may store information about your user preferences (e.g. preferred text size) using cookies which we can access when you visit our website in the future. We do this to help enhance your interaction with our website.
If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to instructions for your file management software to locate the file or directory that stores cookies.
You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.
The cookies we use are: backend: distillery; wp-settings-1; wp-settings-time-1; google cookies: (for preferences, analytics, processes, security, and advertising).
11. Changes to this policy
Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. By continuing to use our website you will be deemed to have accepted such changes.
This Privacy Policy was last amended in May 2018.