Businesses that reduce, re-use and recycle

On Day 4 of our series on the low-carbon economy, Peter Stiff and Emily Ford report on five British businesses embracing green ways of working

— J SainsburyZero-waste scheme
As Britain’s third-largest supermarket chain, J Sainsbury has come to know a thing or two about having the right stock in the right place at the right time.
However, it is not always as easy as it sounds. When a spell of bad weather in midsummer washes out everyone’s weekend barbeque plans, the retailer is left with loads of unsold sausages. A few years ago that may have meant a lot of waste, but not any more. By the end of the year more than 500 of the chain’s stores will be connected to its zero-waste-to-landfill network.
Lorries delivering daily fresh food will pick up all food waste and take it to various plants across the country to be converted into a fuel used to generate power by the process of anaerobic digestion. The scheme will be expanded to all Sainsbury’s convenience stores and cover all waste by 2010. Once operational, the scheme will generate up to 30 megawatts of electricity — enough to power a town of 20,000 people — and supply a significant proportion of the retailer’s power needs.

The zero-waste scheme is only one of many programmes the retailer is pioneering, Alison Austin, its environment manager, says. She notes that the group’s green credentials make business sense, fit its customers’ increasingly green agendas and are receiving “enormous support” from staff.
The group is also in the process of greening hundreds of stores. “If you use less, then that’s good for the bottom line,” Mrs Austin says, adding that the group’s green initiatives are commercially minded and watched closely by senior management. She says that packaging is the No 1 concern for customers and also of huge importance to the company. Sainsbury’s has started selling some cereals without boxes to reduce waste and is also looking at reducing the weight of glass bottles.
— Bruichladdich distillery Locally sourced ingredients
Mark Reynier, the director of Bruichladdich, a whisky distiller, is an accidental environmentalist.
Originally a fine-wine merchant in London, his life changed after tasting a rare single malt at a trade fair in 1985.
“It was a religious moment for me,” he says. “I liked it so much I bought the company.” The Bruichladdich distillery, located on the island of Islay, had been closed since 1994.
In 2001 Mr Reynier, above, reopened it with the aim of creating a superior whisky that reconnected the spirit to its original roots . He says: “My dream was to de-industrialise whisky and create the purest spirit in Scotland.”
He inadvertently created one of the greenest. Bruichladdich sources all ingredients locally, growing barley in 23 local fields, half on Islay and half on the mainland, using local spring water and its own bottling plant. About half is organic and plans are that all eventually will be.
Mr Reynier says that he is attempting to bring the concept of terroir used in fine wine, where the produce is easily traceable to its source. “We wanted to know where every grain has come from,” he says. “We have transformed farming on the island.”
The grassroots approach is in sharp contrast to the heavily consolidated whisky industry, in which 60 per cent of the market is dominated by Diageo and Pernod Ricard, which have international supply chains, growing barley in Russia or Australia and shipping in expensive single malt to blend with cheaper varieties in centralised facilities.
On Islay, barley used in Bruichladdich is produced using the same machinery as was used in 1881, when the whisky was first distilled. Transportation is kept to a minimum. The company has reduced its oil consumption by 17 per cent thanks to a new boiler and sends its waste materials to a local charity for recycling.
Bruichladdich is a high-end whisky. retailing from £44 a bottle. This translates into packaging. “Our bottles are beautiful and so people re-use them rather than throwing them away,” Mr Reynier says. Bruichladdich has been nominated for several green awards. “I never set out to be some eco-warrior,” he says.
— LogicaEnvironmentally minded staff
Most companies would regard a load of old, broken computer parts as waste. Not Logica, where one resourceful employee made a wind turbine from such scrap for the group’s staff environmental awards.
Such ingenuity among its staff, who have also come up with more subtle yet effective ways of being more environmentally friendly — such as printing on both sides of paper and switching off computer monitors — have helped the technology group to reduce carbon emissions by 15 per cent in two years.
Contributions have come from reducing road travel, energy use and waste, with the group’s annual green competition getting staff thinking about the environment. The 15 per cent reduction in emissions smashed internal targets of a 12 per cent cut in four years. Tony Rooke, leader of the group’s sustainability practice, now has the goal of halving the company’s carbon footprint.
He says: “It’s a tough target but there are lots of reasons why it is achievable.” Mr Rooke reckons the company has got back ten times what it has put into green initiatives, saving £10 million off energy and travel costs in the past two years alone. Further cost and carbon savings have come from allowing employees to work from home on a regular basis, reducing the number of desks at the company from 1.1 a person to 0.7, allowing the company to close offices and take cars off the road.
One of Logica’s most effective environmental schemes has been to pull in air from the outside to cool its hot data centres in Wales. Mr Rooke says that the implementation of the idea at the facilities, used to house large numbers of computer systems that get hot and need to be cooled, has saved 800 tonnes of CO2, the equivalent to 400 return flights from London to New York, and saved the company tens of thousands of pounds in energy bills. Logica also got a return on its investment on the project within three months.
Mr Rooke says that green initiatives are of increasing importance commercially as customers become more demanding. For instance, for one recent customer, Mr Rooke said that sustainability was almost as important as cost.
— 3663 Recycled biodiesel
Used cooking oil might not be glamorous but it is fast becoming precious for 3663, which delivers food to thousands of businesses, schools and hotels.
About three quarters of its trucks run on a fuel made from its customers’ and suppliers’ recycled waste vegetable oil, reducing carbon emissions by about 10,000 tonnes a year.
Fred Barnes, the chief executive, says: “A few years ago waste cooking oil was chucked away, but now it’s a valuable commodity.” He notes that the company operates more than 1,000 trucks, so it could hardly “duck the issue” of fuel.
Last year the group collected about three million litres of waste vegetable oil that was taken to a plant in Cheshire to be turned into biodiesel. Even though the biodiesel often ends up more expensive than conventional fuel because of variations in the cost of buying the oil and the price of petrol at the pump, Mr Barnes believes that his business and others must adapt.
“It’s not about cheap fuel but about businesses embracing sustainability,” he says. “Why on earth would you not use a form of energy that would otherwise be waste? We have to take a view that it is moral and sustainable for the long term.” The group believes that the scheme takes it out of the food v fuel debate, while also minimising waste.
The company’s biodiesel programme is only one of a number of schemes to become more sustainable, with its truck depots adopting high-efficiency lighting and catching rainwater to be used to wash its vehicle fleet. The group is also introducing greener refrigeration, sourcing its products locally and reducing packaging. Mr Barnes believes that good environmental policies will all eventually turn into big commercial issues, with lower consumption resulting in lower costs.
— JC Atkinson Green coffins and dead wood
Presumably, his customers are too upset to think about the carbon footprint of the coffin they are buying for their deceased loved one, but Julian Atkinson still believes that every business must address its energy use and environmental impact.
“It very important going forward — everything is moving towards low-carbon and everyone has to start looking at this,” the managing director of JC Atkinson, a Tyne and Wear-based coffinmaker, says.
Mr Atkinson believes that the word “waste” will one day fall from use as everything starts being reused.
In line with that thinking he remortgaged his house last year to install a biomass generator that burns more than 20 tonnes of sawdust and wood offcuts to produce heat and the factory’s own electricity. The device, which has resulted in a 40 per cent fall in energy use, can also put electricity back into the grid.
Mr Atkinson reckons that, by not using electricity from fossil fuels, his company is saving 350 tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
Some of the company’s staff of 80 have changed shift times to work more when energy is cheaper.
Mr Atkinson’s coffins are also made from more environmentally friendly woods, such as Paulownia, which is harvested in seven years, compared with up to 40 years for oak or mahogany, and has leaves that absorb carbon.