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Make this year yourmost sustainable yet
Delia Da Costa, Environmental Lead at Brightwell, shares advice for making 2024 more environmentally friendly.
2024 is undoubtedly going to require an even greater focus on sustainability, which is increasing in importance as the world unites to tackle climate change.
The cleaning industry is in a great position to help lead the way and is
already making much progress. However, there’s more work to do, and I believe in 2024 we’ll see the sector doing even more to minimise environmental impact and implement
sustainable practices across every area of business.
We must all continue to invest and take action to live more sustainably at work and at home. For example, over the course of last year, we established a dedicated position within our organisation to give even greater focus to our environmental agenda.
We’re actively collaborating with several key customers and suppliers to determine the carbon footprint of the products we manufacture. This is a matter of significant interest to customers as they deliver their own Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) agenda. It's equally important for us, since it establishes a baseline and enables us to continue to look at how we reduce our environmental impact.
In 2022, we invested in an on-site recycling centre for the recovery and reprocessing of waste plastic material from our production lines. Investment in regrinding machines, with low dust and noise specifications, enables us to safely capture tonnes of plastic each month, with the capacity to scale this up in the future. The plastic is then returned to the production cycle – something the market expects from a responsible and ethical manufacturer. This reduces the need for raw materials, which has a huge impact on our supply chain emissions.
Furthermore, it’s crucial for us to go beyond plastic and ensure we recycle as much waste and byproducts from our business as possible. Any materials that cannot be recycled are directed to a waste-to-energy facility, ensuring that we achieve zero waste to landfill. We use a closed- circuit water supply system for cooling our injection moulding machines. This helps to reduce our carbon
30 | TOMORROW'S CLEANING
footprint by minimising water consumption and waste while maximising cooling efficiency.
We’ve also chosen to partner with suppliers that can support our business in achieving ours and our customers’ environmental goals. We use a large quantity of cardboard cartons for individual products, as well as for packaging and shipping purposes. Over the past year, we have made a significant change in our packaging supplier, partnering with Kite Packaging, who is certified carbon neutral by Carbon Neutral Britain. This decision was driven by our commitment to environmental sustainability.
Collaborating with an environmentally focused supplier brings numerous benefits and enables us to communicate with our customers about the carbon neutrality of the packaging we use. Additionally, we are working with various plastic suppliers to source greater levels of recycled material.
We’re focusing on every intricate aspect of our processes, including the products’ lifecycle. By understanding which resources are being transferred in each stage, we can identify opportunities for recycling and determine the next steps in our sustainability efforts.
With sustainability being at the heart of our business, we’ve recently implemented monitoring controls to improve our Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). This allows us to monitor power consumption, particularly for the energy- intensive elements of our business, driving efficiencies by identifying instances where electricity and resources are being utilised without need. Additionally, this aligns with our commitment to minimise our environmental impact.
This year, as we develop our sustainability program and grow our environmental measures, we’ll be showcasing our sustainability successes through a dedicated page on our website. As Brightwell’s Environmental Lead, I’ll be spearheading this drive, supporting everyone to capture and implement product sustainability across all our ranges, and grow the company-wide measures to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Extending these measures will make a positive impact for all our customers and the planet.
www.brightwell.co.uk twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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