Christeyns UK Sustainability Focus
The recent Coronavirus pandemic has made significant impacts on the way we live our lives in all countries of the world.
There are many, such as the writer Mike Berners-Lee (Author of “There is No Planet B), that think this seismic event may act as a catalyst to drive positive change in the way we approach sustainability. Clearly the sustainability of a company’s actions is becoming much more important.
Not only are more and more customers asking for explanatory information on the carbon or ecological footprint, but the labour market is also attaching growing importance to it.
Christeyns already has made significant changes such as installing solar panels, launching new chemical systems such as Cool Chemistry™ to enable washing at lower temperatures possible and installed systems on customer sites to recover water and energy.
We continually work in our research and development departments to invent products that are more environmentally friendly.
However, as a business diversified over more than 30 countries, we have not always told our story and so we have now launched a programme to look at the best of what we do and share it with our colleagues and customers to inspire further change and raise performance against essential international targets in carbon reduction and sustainability.
In the UK, we have made sustainability the responsibility of one of the Board Directors, Justin Kerslake, with a remit to not rest on our laurels but challenge every aspect of the business to do more.
Key early successes have been to switch energy supply for the main Bradford plant to net Carbon Zero supply, to change vehicle supplier to facilitate electric or hybrid vehicle choices for the high mileage drivers and build on successes in our Warrington and Whaley Bridge plant with utilisation of LED lighting.
We are currently progressing feasibility studies to install solar panels. But the drive to sustainability isn’t as simple as just moving to greener sources of energy, we must learn to consume less in general.
Remote working in a flexible environment is encouraged, telematics for delivery vehicles and super concentrated products are all in development to reduce CO2e emissions from transportation.
We are using data and remote monitoring to monitor customer usage and predict issues before they occur thus minimising the need to drive to a customer site.
Many ask, what can I do? Outside of the workplace, individuals can look at their own behaviours and choices. Car sharing or cycling to work, reusing plastic bags and containers, choosing to eat less meat, are all actions that can be taken. Learning more about the impacts we make as individuals or as part of organisations is a key step to make informed choices.
That is why Christeyns is working to tell its story to lead by example and inspire ourselves, our customers and our business partners to make a difference.
