On the road to cutting carbon: 'Best Advice' campaign travels to the regions

Yorkshire businesses had the opportunity this week to hear first-hand how one of their own had saved 2,000 tonnes of CO2 and generated £500,000 in energy savings since 2008.

The company in question was landscape materials manufacturer Marshalls plc and the businesses hearing its story yesterday were attending the Leeds launch of the Carbon Trust’s 'Best Advice' campaign, a drive to persuade British companies to stop wasting more than £3 billion of energy every year.

The idea behind the campaign – which received its national launch last week and is visiting other regional cities such as Birmingham and Manchester this month – is to encourage all businesses that spend between £50,000 and £3 million on energy each year to take a free carbon survey from the Carbon Trust. Marshalls received a Carbon Trust survey in 2008 and the Carbon Trust says typically such surveys reveal potential savings on energy costs of between 20 per cent and 30 per cent.

Chris Harrop, group marketing director of Marshalls, says many Yorkshire businesses have expressed concern about energy costs and an interest in reducing them.

Indeed, nationally, almost half (49 per cent) of the 700 business recently surveyed by the Carbon Trust said they were worried about energy price hikes – the figure was even higher in sectors such as construction (55 per cent), manufacturing (53 per cent) and hospitality (52 per cent).

Companies around the country that have taken advantage of one of the Carbon Trust surveys are reporting real progress though in combating energy price volatility.

Carbon Trust survey helps Lowry Hotel in Manchester

The Lowry Hotel in Manchester, a five-star hotel that employs 200 staff and has 165 bedrooms, has cut its annual carbon footprint by 363 tonnes and saved itself £37,498 per year in energy costs since taking one of the Carbon Trust surveys.

It's done this by creating a 'green committee' to oversee carbon reduction initiatives. These include putting in place a building management system, allowing the Lowry Hotel to monitor energy usage and turn off lighting and air conditioning in areas which are not in use. The hotel is in the process of changing all the light bulbs throughout the building to energy efficient alternatives, while boilers have been fitted with a control system making them more energy efficient.

Shopping centre saves seven per cent on energy usage

In Ipswich, the Buttermarket Shopping Centre, turned to the Carbon Trust for help with a survey a year ago and has managed to make annual savings in carbon of 960 tonnes, and resource and energy savings of £19,366 a year to date.

“With the help and support of the Carbon Trust and our managing agent EFM, we have made real progress in reducing our energy usage at the shopping centre. In just under a year we have saved more than seven per cent of our energy usage, have formed an energy committee and are testing a pilot scheme on replacing halogen bulbs with fluorescent ones,” says Colin Roberts, centre manager.

Marshalls’ own path to £500,000 of energy savings began by looking at the company’s whole supply chain, from raw materials to processes.

According to Harrop it highlighted a number of problem areas – for example how some equipment was being used and maintained, and lights being left on all the time, even when they were not needed.

Having received the report, Harrop set up eight energy teams throughout the business to look at specific areas including efficiency, the way in which electricity usage was measured and managed, energy saving new technology and employee engagement.

Employee engagement at Marshalls

Employee engagement has been particularly central to what Marshalls has achieved since then, according to Harrop. The company ran an energy saving week in which more than 1,000 of its staff – slightly less than half of the total workforce – participated.

The idea was to get staff to look at their personal carbon footprints to see what savings they could make. The result was average savings of £175 and 1.3 tonnes of carbon.

Harrop explained the value of this to the business: “If you make a cultural change at home, you bring that with you to the work environment.”

Since the changes prompted by the Carbon Trust survey have become embedded into Marshalls business practice, the company has gone on to what Harrop described as the “bigger work” of carbon footprinting all 2,500 of its products.

Carbon footprinting products

“It identifies exactly where energy and carbon was used in the production of a product. So we can be very specific about the energy and carbon used in those products,” explained Harrop.

He said the carbon savings to be made on some products are considerably greater that those made by improving the business’s processes. “In one example of block paving, we reformulated it and changed some of the process and reduced the footprint by 39 per cent – we could do this because we knew exactly where to focus,” he explained.

The green issue currently on the agenda at Marshalls is on-site renewable energy. “There is a great debate – and it’s a live debate – going on in our business. After all, our business is about making landscaping materials, it’s not about generating electricity,” commented Harrop.

With the help of the Carbon Trust, the company has commissioned consultants to look at the economic case and the suitability of Marshalls’ sites for generating electicity. A decision is due to be made in the autumn.

The Carbon Trust Best Advice campaign is running a competition for businesses to win advice from leading industry figures. Five winners from across the UK will be invited to attend a private reception and discussion with Ian Cheshire, group chief executive of Kingfisher and chairman of B&Q, Paul Thandi, chief executive of NEC Group, Dawn Gibbins, founder of Barefoot and the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year, and Chris Harrop, director of the paving firm, Marshalls.

To get involved, go to www.thebestadvice.co.uk.