Everards and the Environment
We consider our impact on the environment really seriously, so we thought we’d share some of things we’ve done with you:
January 2010
Let there be light!
We’ve just put the finishing touches to an upgraded lighting system in the brewery. It’s part of our energy saving initiative and involved replacing existing lighting and lighting controls to minimise energy wastage.
As well as reducing our carbon footprint we’ve also improved visibility in the warehouse area of the brewery and of course there have been substantial cost savings. The updated system extends the life of our lights from two years to six years and it will also reduce the cost of lamp disposal in compliance with the WEEE Directive.
September 09
We’ve just started a project which involves replacing the refrigeration plant in our brewery and this month we took delivery of two new refrigeration units. Crane Day (as we called it) involved using a mammoth crane to hoist the new units into place. The new units mean that as well as being legally comliant, they’re also cheaper and easier to maintain whilst at the same time improving our energy efficiency here at the brewery.
July 09
After considerable work with our suppliers, Steve ( He’s our Health and Safety and Green Credentials Campaigner) and his team have managed to get our gas consumption figures sent wirelessly from one end of the site to the other, so now we’ve got up to the minute gas monitoring as well as electricity monitoring. This means we can really see what has an effect on our gas consumption and how altering our working practices can change it. Good work from the engineers!
April 09
To raise awareness of our commitment to the environment we organised an ‘Environmental Week’, where everybody was asked to keep a close eye on how they were using energy. We’ve had an energy saving/awareness poster and sticker campaign, active monitoring and policing of lighting and brewing trials with a reduced boil time. All these measures really added up and we actually saved 3,423kWh off an average week. We’re not stopping now – The poster and sticker campaign remains in place and we’re continuing to look at our boil times.
January 09
The information from our energy sensors is giving us some great information. Steve Brassington (our engineering manager) found one of our air compressors wasn’t too efficient and was running longer than it was really needed. After researching alternatives, Steve secured funding to replace this compressor back in September and now it’s in and running we’re using 40% less energy to generate compressed air than our old one, so we’re well pleased with Steve.
October 08
We’re really keen on making Everards as environmentally friendly as possible but we’re not expert environmental consultants, so we’ve found somebody who is and asked for their guidance and advice to help us become greener. Dr Emma Fieldhouse is the environmental manager at the University of Leicester and has agreed to sit in on our steering group meetings to bring her experience from making the University of Leicester a greener place to our group. You can read about what Emma does here
September 08
We’ve been looking at all sorts of gadgets to help us be more environmentally friendly at work but perhaps education could be the real key. By letting everybody know how much energy a computer or printer uses if it’s left on overnight and how much it costs then perhaps people might turn them off. Our environmental volunteers are spreading the green word around in every department and team to encourage colleagues to switch off at the end of the day.
August 08
Lots of people working for Everards have company phones and Blackberries and our IT department deals with the obsolete and faulty handsets. In the past we’ve sent them to a specialist waste company to dispose of but this year we’ve recycled them and it’s something everybody can do! Look out for services from the mobile phone networks and shops that let you recycle your old phones…they might even be worth something, so why not dig them out?
July 08
It’s all about monitoring…Before we go about saving energy we decided we needed to better understand how much energy we use, when we use it and where it’s used. To do this we’ve installed energy sensors all around the brewery and head office that automatically collect readings every five minutes to give us really accurate information so we can look at where we can best save energy. Whenever we change our equipment or our processes we’ll be able to see the impact of change almost immediately. Websites like the energy saving trust and act on co2 have loads of useful tips on how you can save energy too.
April 08
Nearly everything we do has an impact on the environment, so we thought it would be a good idea to get a few people together to think about the areas we need to work on. We’ve got a group of volunteers from around the company with one person from each area sitting in on a steering group, which focuses our efforts to make us more environmentally friendly.