Environmental

IMAGINE for a moment, that you are the Managing Director of a Small Manufacturer who has managed to supply a Multinational with your best product, which has grown to 60% of turnover in recent years.

The Multinational became registered for ISO 14001 last year and is dropping heavy hints that you should have done the same by now. They are not actually saying that they will remove you from their supplier's list, but you know that your 60% is only 5 % of their Purchases, so if they do go elsewhere it will ruin you, but they will hardly notice.

Don't panic. Your Multinational friends are being encouraged to do this and it will have been written into their Environmental Policy, so they should be helping you.

Ask them for a copy of their policy, which they have probably published already. Next, talk to the person who did most of the work in getting the system up and running. Often this is also the person Managing Health & Safety and/or Quality too.

Your businesses may well have a lot in common. You should find that they can pass on some good advice, such as "if we were starting now we would have done it differently!" At this stage you should appoint your own Environmental Person, who could be a present employee or an Environmental Consultant, working for you part-time.

Keep it Simple. For a holding operation you can do quite a lot that costs very little.

As a manufacturer you must comply with Environmental Law. You probably are; or else SEPA(i) , EA(ii) or your Local Authority would have visited you. You can get some very helpful checklists from various publishers; Gee Publishing and Croner Publications for example.

But these can be a little daunting unless you are prepared for some serious reading. So here is our checklist:

1. What is the environment costing you now? - Have you paid fines? What do you pay the bin man, the waste man and the scrap man? Would the waste man charge less if you segregated waste?
2. What do your utilities cost? - Electricity, gas, heating oil and water. Do you read your meters and monitor use?
3. Do you know where your wastewater and rain water goes? - Do you have a site plan? If yes, does it show all the drains? When it rains do the drains overflow? Do you have an interceptor? Have you sampled it?
4. Could you reduce, re-use, or recycle Packaging? - Why pay for packaging and pay to dispose? Would your customers accept less or even zero? Can you re-use anything?
5. Have you a list of all the chemicals you use? - Apart form those covered by COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health), have you a list of all the volatile sprays, the water-soluble cleaning fluids etc?
6. Do you know what gases you are venting? - This is also part of Health & Safety Law. If you really do not know, it may be expensive to have emissions tested, but it could cost much more in fines.

Feed-Back. Serious consideration of these 6 questions should generate your own "To do" list, which has only cost a little time. From here it is a short step to writing an Environmental Policy Statement. You can adapt published examples using the "To do" list as your priorities. You can now tell your Multinational that you have made a start and you may be surprised how pleased they will be.

Small Steps. When you are sure you are complying with the Law, look for the best savings first. For manufacturers this is usually, Energy Water and Waste. If you use more than 100 kW of electricity you can get daily email spreadsheets showing half-hourly readings. The peaks can highlight waste. This is fast cost cutting. Turn it down or turn it off and your next bill is less. Next, water is so easy to save. Cheap electronics ensure that urinals only flush when used. Fit trigger jets to hoses. Bend the ball cocks down. Mend dripping taps promptly. Read the meter to prove progress. Practice the 3R's to cut waste Reduce, Re-use and Recycle.

Write it down. If you decide to go for the ISO14001 standard it is important to prove Continuous Improvement, even years later. Keep a running list of the what, why, where, when and cost/benefit of those small steps. If you decide not to go for ISO14001 just yet, you have a track record to keep Big Brother happy!

Lastly, a Cautionary tale. In 1998 a small manufacturer was fined £80,000 for polluting a river. This was reduced on appeal to £8,000 because they were registered for ISO 14001.

In this article I have discussed a holding operation. Quensh can help with advice during a holding operation right through to the point when we work ourselves out of a job! - leaving you with a system that you can manage yourselves.

i Scottish Environmental Protection Agency
ii Environmental Agency