Neutral territory

Very quickly, climate change has moved from being a distant and indefinable concern to being a real and immediate issue for businesses and organisations of all shapes and sizes.

According to the Carbon Neutral Company, it is estimated that each employee produces five tonnes of CO2 a year. In the challenge to become carbon neutral, no business can afford to ignore the impact of its activities on the local, regional and global environment.

Against this background, I firmly believe we are rapidly moving towards a situation where environmental performance will increasingly become a determining factor behind whether contracts and orders are won or lost.

The reality of this situation became especially apparent after Seaward recently undertook a comprehensive audit of its energy consumption as part of plans to reduce its carbon footprint.

No part of the business was overlooked. The audit was set up through an inter-departmental environmental management group so that all staff were involved in the process of analysis, discussion and decisions.

Our overall target is to reduce the carbon footprint of the business by 50% over the next three years. As part of this plan, we aim to make our range of electrical test instruments carbon neutral within 18 months.

As part of our review, all Seaward’s lighting, electrical equipment and manufacturing processes have been considered in terms of energy use and raw materials. We’ve looked at our recycling and waste management systems, as well as transportation issues involving deliveries and sales visits.

As a result of our initial remedial measures taken in response to the energy survey and investment in carbon offsetting, we have been able to introduce the electrical industry’s first ever carbon neutral test instrument – the new Powertest 1557 electrical installation tester.

Although this instrument is the lightest in its class, at less than 1 kg, we were astonished to learn that during manufacture each tester and its associated accessories generated more than 20 kg of CO2.

As progress is made on meeting other environmental performance goals, we will achieve similar status for other products.

We were astonished to learn that during manufacture each tester and its associated accessories generated more than 20kg of CO2.

Our analysis yielded some other interesting results. For example, as well as the anticipated effects of better housekeeping in relation to heating and lighting costs, we identified that water coolers which are switched on all the time generate over half a tonne of CO2 each year.

Similarly, vending machines in the canteen accounted for up to three tonnes of CO2 and we found that automatic cleansing systems in the toilets were literally flushing away hundreds of litres of water during the night and at weekends when the factory was empty.

Among the practical changes to be introduced, the company will be switching its energy supplies to renewable sources and green tariffs. We are also setting up new arrangements for waste management and recycling, putting timers on switches and appliances, making lighting system changes throughout our buildings and changing all stationery to recycled grades.

We calculate that simply swapping our office paper from conventional stationery to recycled grades will save one tonne of CO2 a year.

In transportation terms, we are reviewing the working practices of our sales team and encouraging distributors to accept less frequent but higher volume deliveries of products.

By involving our staff in these changes at work we also hope to encourage them to consider their own personal environmental impact and how things might be changed in their homes to achieve similar beneficial effects.

As well as making a wide range of practical changes, we have also made a contribution to a carbon offsetting programme to make an immediate impact in reducing the company’s carbon footprint. This has been made through investments in a series of renewable energy and efficiency projects in the developing world.

Of course, the process of scrutinising our energy bills and reviewing our waste levels has helped us to improve efficiency in many areas. This will inevitably lead to some cost savings while other changes will actually add to our costs in the short term. However, over time the commercial payback should be significant.

Having started on the route towards carbon neutrality, this objective now represents our number one corporate responsibility priority. After all, if we are to be successful commercially in future, there really is no alternative.