AWM push for greater sustainability and promote a green focus for 2020!

AWM Limited commits to reducing its impact on the environment by introducing even more sustainable business practices

We must commit to making our practices more sustainable and to reducing our carbon footprint to avoid extreme global warming that could irreversibly damage our planet and its ecosystems.
Today, we are all encouraged to do our bit for the environment but the carbon footprint of industry is many times greater than that of an individual and as such it is vitally important that we, as businesses, play our part. We must take responsibility for our carbon footprint, general polluting and the impact our operations have on the planet. With this in mind, AWM Limited are pledging to put in place more ways in which we can be more environmentally friendly, green focused and sustainable. This blog post will highlight what we are currently doing and what we can do better in trying to achieve a more sustainable business practice.

Focusing on our corporate responsibility to support more sustainable business practices is high on our agenda for 2020. Cynics will say sustainability and green business are just marketing ploys or tick boxes to meet tender criteria, but we believe they must become part of our day to day life to ensure we are doing all we can to reduce our impacts on the environment.

And sustainability doesn’t need to impact negatively on business and profit. To paraphrase the UK Government’s view of sustainability, we just need to make the necessary decisions now to be able to generate economic growth whilst protecting our environment and without negatively impacting on the ability of future generations to do the same.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says…

“Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment.  Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in the productive harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and other requirements of present and future generations. Sustainability is important to making sure that we have and will continue to have, the water, materials, and resources to protect human health and our environment”

We should all care about sustainability and look to work with partners whose businesses meet their social responsibility and share our values. Regardless of the size of the organisation, there are things we can all do to participate in conserving resources.

Remember the mantra – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

1. Reduce

• We manufacture our Valueweigh weighing scales here in Suffolk, UK, greatly reducing our carbon footprint by not shipping in from abroad
• When we have to buy in components from aboard we buy in bulk to reduce multiple shipments and aim to use sea or road freight instead of air whenever possible
• We have reduced the amount of paper and resources we use by implementing Electronic Verification Forms, Job Sheets and Calibration Certificates and use Hi-Resolution to verify scales thus reducing the need for many physical test weights.
• Our company cars are all modern vehicles that are replaced every few years to ensure they have the latest green engine technology
• We have automatic switches on our boardroom and hall way lights to ensure they are not unnecessarily left on
• We have engaged with our employees to ensure lights and machines are switched off over night to reduce energy consumption
• We purchase locally wherever possible to reduce our carbon footprint (our workshop consumables, milk and fruit/veg are all bought from local companies on our industrial estate)
• We encourage lift sharing and take it in turns to collect lunch to reduce the amount of car journeys

2. Reuse

• Wherever possible we reuse any packaging material that is sent to us by our suppliers
• We encourage our technical staff to repair rather than replace, this of course includes products that are in for repair but also our own IT and workshop equipment
• We look after our machinery and infrastructure with regular service schedules to ensure it will last and operate safely for as long as possible

3. Recycle

• We have recycled our packaging and cardboard for years now but we have recently introduced recycling points throughout the offices and workshop to help increase our plastic recycling by making it quicker and easier to sort our waste.
• We are practising what we preach and will be using our Waste Recycling Software to monitor the amount of waste we recycle and reporting this publicly.
• We have introduced shredding machines so that we can recycle cardboard boxes and office paper into packaging material.
•  We purchase bio-degradable packaging material to supplement the recycled cardboard whenever required.
• We recycle our electronics and circuit boards under our WEEE recycling responsibilities

We are also pleased to report that our Company Director is planting hundreds of trees on the farm from which our sister company Dunhill Farm operates. Planting trees is a way to offset some of our Group’s CO2 emissions and help improve the agricultural landscape.
If you have any questions of suggestions about AWM Limited’s sustainability and corporate responsibility we would love to hear from you. Please click here to contact us.