How We Are Reducing Our Carbon Footprint

We are placing a large focus throughout all areas of the business to reduce our carbon footprint. The main areas of focus have been:

• Production
• Operations
• Employees
• Logistics
• Suppliers

See the full infographic of the steps we're taking to reduce our CO₂ footprint. 

Production

Our engineering department are continuously working to implement operational enhancements to our machinery to reduce the CO₂ emissions from production. We recently upgraded our compressors which resulted in a production energy reduction of up to 20%. In addition, we also replaced the burners in our machines with more environmentally friendly alternatives to maximise efficiency, reduce the direct emissions from production whilst further reducing energy costs by 10%, which equates to a 30% reduction per annum.

Operations

Our continuous improvement team work closely with our production, NPD, technical and engineering departments to implement enhancements to our processes, operations and equipment to reduce our carbon footprint. One of the recent projects our CI team delivered focused on improving the management of our paper materials, this permitted us to save over 15 tonnes of paper per annum and maximised the efficient use of this material, reducing landfill. This saving equates to us saving the weight of more than 2 elephants from waste and maximises the handling/efficiency of our raw materials.

Another impressive project our CI team spearheaded was the enhancements made to the processes of cutting our paper cores, with a key focus on reuse and recycle. This project allowed our team to maximise the recyclability of our paper cores and minimise our carbon footprint, in fact, by implementing this change we were able to successfully reduce waste by 30% and save over 6.5 tonnes of cores going to waste. This also has a positive impact on reducing CO₂ emissions from transport, as reusing and recycling materials reduced the requirement for reordering materials as frequently.

Business Travel

We are rolling out electric cars to our sales team in a bid to reduce their collective CO₂ emissions and carbon footprint when visiting our customers and suppliers. Furthermore, when our team are required to travel, we always prioritise the train over the plane to reduce CO₂ emissions and go paper-less.

Energy Efficient Lighting

Our whole facilities have been fitted with energy efficient LED light bulbs, these use up to 75% less energy and also last up to 25 times longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. In fact, switching from traditional bulbs to LED bulbs allow us to save around 5kg of CO₂ emissions per bulb whilst also saving more than £9,000 per annum.

Employees

To halt the use of single-use plastic on-site, we have removed plastic cutlery and requested employees bring their own cutlery and reusable coffee cups and flasks into the office.

Logistics

Our main carrier, DB Shenker, are also committed to reducing their CO₂ emissions by 30 percent until 2020 and CO₂ emissions by 50 percent until 2030 compared to 2006. To reach this goal, they have launched a variety of initiatives and are continuing to expand their range of green logistics products. Their initiatives include:

• Seek to reduce transport miles by consolidation
• Shifting to the most environmentally friendly mode of transport and increase efficiency by continuous fleet renewals, this initiative also allows DB Shenker to avoid charges and comply with Greater Manchester’s Clean Air Zone, which is being implemented from 30^th May 2022 which aims to reduce air pollution on local roads. If interested, you can discover more about the Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone.

Suppliers

One final element which is a key contributing factor to reducing our CO₂ emissions is carefully selecting

 sustainable and responsible suppliers. For example, our gas provider permitted us to offset 9.77 tonnes of LPG carbon emissions, the equivalent of driving 80,000 miles in a car. In addition, our sustainable label materials come from FSC® certified ranges of paper which allow our customers to track the origins of face materials and demonstrate that the paper is from responsibly managed forests. FSC® License Code C002557.

Speak to our team

If you would like to speak to our team about any of our CO₂ emission savings, then you can do so via our website or emailing info@smcl.co.uk.