Springfield’s Journey Towards Carbon Net-Zero
At Springfield Solutions, we are working towards becoming a Carbon Net-Zero business. We carry out many initiatives within the company to help our customers and ourselves to offset our environmental impact and reduce our carbon footprint.
An important question to ask ourselves is why? Why are we, Springfield Solutions, striving to become a Carbon Net-Zero business? We care about this target for the future—the future of the planet, the company, and our staff. Our future depends on collective efforts to become more eco-friendly by making conscious decisions as a business and as individuals, to benefit the planet.
How are we making a conscious effort?
Eco-Friendly Label Materials
Firstly, we have introduced Eco-Friendly label materials under the name ‘Eco Zone’ to encourage our customers to make the ‘eco switch’ with various materials to reduce our packaging’s impact on the environment.
There are three categories within the Eco Zone:
Reuse: Utilising Biodegradable and Compostable substrates to facilitate an extended life cycle of packaging components.
Reduce: Reducing the amount of material present in our labels. This is achieved by using lower density films and downgauging the materials used within the labels themselves.
Recycle: Using recycled materials in our labels. This includes materials such as Post-Consumer Resin and Post-Industrial Recycled Content.
To find out more about our Eco label materials, click here!
Eco-Energy
We are continually assessing each area of the business in our journey to become Carbon Net-Zero, including our energy sources. For example, we recently installed solar panels on our roof, which has allowed us to save a total of 2,788.95kg of CO2 emissions in June alone, the equivalent of planting 127.66 trees!
Shortly, we will also install two electric car charging points for our staff and visitors driving electric vehicles.
Internal Initiatives
Internally, we are consistently working on ways to monitor and reduce our energy usage. Including a daily switch off of large equipment, installing energy-efficient LED lighting throughout the building, switching our electricity supply to 100% renewable resources and significantly reducing the amount of waste sent to landfills.
We are also currently assessing a proposal to monitor the energy usage of our main pieces of equipment with the most significant energy demand—for example, Printing Presses, Finishing & Rewind Equipment, Air Conditioning, Compressors etc.
Once we have this knowledge, we can utilise Artificial Intelligence to start learning the behaviours of these large energy users and turn them off when not required.
Decreasing energy usage
Although our production output has increased year on year, especially in 2020, our electricity usage has decreased compared to the number of meters of labels printed.
This can be seen in the graph above, which shows how our average KLW per metre consumed has decreased over the past decade. We will continue to monitor our energy usage and find new ways to maintain this downward trend.
The Future – Carbon Net-Zero
During a recent Humber Future Net Zero Survey meeting, we were identified as an ‘Early Adopter’ in the race to become ‘Net Zero’ amongst 650 SMEs within the Humber Region.
This is a recognition of high importance to us, as we strive to do better and be better for the environment and our future.
“There is no doubt that very soon, every business will be legislated regarding its Carbon Emissions (if they are not already). We will also see more frequent questionnaires and accreditations required to carry on doing business with existing and new customers. However, the main reason we are pushing aggressively towards becoming a Carbon Net-Zero business is that it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for today, and it will be the right thing to do for tomorrow.
The question every business should be asking is not ‘what will the cost of becoming a Carbon Net-Zero business be?’ but; ‘what will be the cost, if we don’t become a Carbon Net-Zero business?’” – Matt Dass, Managing Director.
To find out more about our Eco-Friendly label materials, and request your FREE sample, click here.