Emily Smith is Managing Director and Finance Director at two award-winning manufacturing firms in Leicestershire. She chairs the ICAEW Manufacturing Community advisory group and sits on the regional advisory board for Make UK. Emily saw first-hand the devastating effect of climate change in Africa during a month spent doing conservation work in 2019. On her return she was determined to ramp up her business efforts towards sustainability.
Background
Our family-run business was established in 1985 and today supplies power systems to large corporate and public organisations across the UK. We are one of the UK’s fastest-growing electrical control and distribution engineering companies – with an aim of becoming a carbon negative manufacturer. There is no framework for achieving this in our sector. So, we created our own. We learned along the way that gaining accreditations such as ISO14001: Environmental Management demands commitment, innovative thinking, and investment.
Where we went for help
It helps to have specialist support as you develop sustainability policy with business planning. We have been working closely with Carbon Neutral Britain since November 2021, gaining detailed data to understand the main drivers behind our carbon footprint and creating an action plan to address them with informed decisions.
Benefits
It’s the right thing to do
Increasing sustainability is the right thing to do. Manufacturing uses significant energy and we can play our part by mitigating what we use in production. Our new processes benefit our wider community and help Leicestershire towards its goal of net zero emissions by 2050. In implementing change, we are also opening up a host of new regional and national networks.
Cost
We don’t have the budget of larger companies operating in our sector, but we do have the will to lead change. We do so through setting environmental objectives and targets, implementing procedures, and training our employees and supply chains to understand our environmental responsibilities.
Access to funding
Government aims for the UK to be Net Zero by 2050. There continues to be support for innovative businesses looking for new ways to do more with less. We have received grants towards machinery, which has increased productivity by 30% while decreasing energy use. More recently, and on a smaller scale, we were awarded £2,500 towards building a new website that will carry less data – reducing the energy burden on servers while increasing page load speed and search ranking.
Generating new business
We were delighted recently when we received the first of what we expect to be a stream of new leads from large corporate clients looking to build sustainability into their own supply chains. This is supported by our own profile burgeoning from the local to the regional: earlier this year we won Make UK regional awards, including for Energy and Sustainability, and Health and Safety.
Practical outcomes for us include
- Installing 284 solar PV panels reduced power usage and costs by 27% in the first 9 months
- Diverting 100% of general waste from landfill through recycling schemes and alternative disposal
- Using R&D to improve core products, reducing usage of copper by 25%
- Reviewing our supply chain led us to switch from bubble wrap to an environmentally friendly local alternative, reducing costs by 34%
- Fitting trackers and reviewing delivery routes mean our new electric vans make the shortest, most efficient journeys possible
Modernising the business
It was essential that changes made to reduce carbon also served to modernise the business, increase value for clients, and add competitive advantage.
Therefore, the first step was to audit internal processes. Gains were to be made in making what we were already doing, before looking externally at offsetting and investment.
We introduced
A detailed emission data collection sheet for directors. This audit took several months but enabled us to make informed decisions relating to vehicles, air conditioning, and boilers, as well as indirect emissions from utilities, waste, commute, and deliveries.
Directors sitting on industry panels looking at environmental issues in manufacturing. Building networks of decision-makers is key to making the sector more sustainable.
New technology in machinery, packaging and administration. Investment enabled us to advance sustainability and efficiency. For example, state-of-the-art CNC machinery reduces carbon footprint while streamlining the manufacturing process.
Internal platforms for getting employees more involved. Voluntary ‘lunch and learns’ help to educate on our purpose, a suggestion box drew 27 ideas in its first year, daily team meetings are led by managers, and updates on waste reduction are delivered through internal comms. A monthly staff liaison group which feeds back to directors.
What we learned – and the next stage
There were inevitable costs attached to installing solar panels, commissioning electric vehicles, and preserving woodland. But these were always a long-term investment.
We have learned to integrate sustainability into business planning. For example, we wanted to install a green roof, however, we learned our building could not hold the additional weight. Such considerations will be built into future building work.
The same is true of investment in replacement machinery. Our next phase will further move the business forward in efficiency. Robotics have the potential to streamline production and address the emerging manpower issue in UK manufacturing.
Is the work of two businesses in Leicester going to save the world? No. However, if everyone makes incremental improvements then the collective impact can be huge.
*The views expressed are the author’s and not ICAEW’s.