Eltherington's Story
We are a local family manufacturing company recently celebrating 60 years in business. We recently invested in new premises and invested heavily in modernising improvements. At the same time one of the directors was tasked with reducing waste and achieving carbon reduction.
The business is almost two years into the project and has already saved £250k-£350k per year. The project continues and while it is expected that some substantial investment will need to be made, we are confident that additional similar savings can be achieved. The director in charge and the staff have found it rewarding to have played a part in reducing carbon and waste.
Useful Learnings from Eltherington
We bought the current premises in 2015 and invested significantly on acquiring the whole site. It's an old site in need of updating and once settled in the premises the business started looking into ways to improve efficiencies and reduce waste.
We created a reward system and actively involved staff in generating ideas to save waste, energy and cost. We were able to take forward several ideas, such as using bigger skips to reduce the transportation costs and impacts. The reward system and communication has encouraged staff involvement and having one person overseeing this gave it focus.
Challenges have been in understanding the projects and finding the solutions then making the case for investment but once implemented often initiatives pay for themselves. This builds momentum for more interventions.
We would strongly recommend that businesses identify someone to focus solely on this activity to avoid a stop/start approach.
Eltherington's Metrics
Reduction in kilowatt hours per year (140,000).
Reduction in tonnes of carbon per year (35).
Reduction in bills (£21,000).
