A circular approach to sustainability
Although prime minister Rishi Sunak recently watered down some of the Government’s commitment to key green pledges[i], the argument for embracing sustainable business practices has never been greater.
A new way of doing business
Our approach to sustainability aims to monitor and reduce the overall impact of our business activities on the environment. Our main focus has been to transition from a linear to a ‘Circular Economy’. This means first measuring our material flows and then enabling the re-use and circulation of these resources, retaining economic value and eliminating waste. A ‘closed-loop’ process.
Our entire workforce is now committed to engaging with the mantra to ‘Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle’, which pushed through some significant changes:
Reduce
- A reduction of 19.8% of energy used to drive the motors on our extrusion lines has been achieved by switching from AC to DC Motors, resulting in an annual saving of 64,774kwh.
- A 57% reduction in plastic packaging waste generated from the venting process of Freefoam woodgrain finish boards.
Reuse
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Up to 27,600kg of cardboard cores – used for protective film, foil, and tubing – are now recovered and sent back to our supplier for reuse every year, saving 9,108kg[ii] of carbon emissions (CO2e).
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15,000kg of FIBC bags (Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers) – which hold compound blends for foam and rigid PVC – are now reused internally, saving 24,000kg[iii] CO2e per annum.
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Up to 830kg of pallet liners are recovered from both internal and external sources and re-used each year, extending their useful life before eventual recycling.
- 7,400kg of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) pallet hoods are now in a closed loop system, collected and reused as transit packaging, with an annual saving of 13,838kg of CO2e and an economic saving of £19,007 every year.
Recycle
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Between 2015 and 2020, over 8,220 metric tonnes of mixed colour foam PPW (post-production waste) was recycled and reused inhouse within Freefoam’s closed loop production system, directly replacing the use of raw virgin PVC. This system allows our final product to contain recycled content while meeting our high-quality standards
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- 400,000 litres/year of rainwater collected and recycled for use in production related activities such as cooling of PVC boards through the calibration cooling tanks.
Our commitment to sustainability isn’t a top-down, management-led initiative. It’s something that should be – and has been - embraced by employees, our customers and suppliers.
For example, Freefoam Waste Operative Gary Willis, having worked at Freefoam for just over two years, identified some PVC offcuts which were recycled offsite, and sought to retain their value by repurposing and reusing them as transit packaging. This quick win project recovers over 1,900kg of PVC offcuts annually.
One of our suppliers, Mid-Cork Pallets & Packaging, has switched to solar energy and commissioned a combined heat and power plant which produces 1.2 megawatts of green electricity per hour. And C & A Building Products, a Freefoam stockist for almost 20 years, recently installed solar panels on its warehouse and has been 80% self-sufficient in energy – up to 100% on some days.
We’ve also reached out to local sustainability leaders and took part in the inaugural University of Northampton Sustainability Summit.
Accountability is essential