A few years ago, we embarked on a major investment programme to improve the sustainability of Tate's business operations, our supply chain, and the final composition of our products manufactured at our UK plant in Hull.
Our aim has been to lower our environmental impact at every stage and align ourselves with Kingspan Group’s Planet Passionate initiative - a 10-year strategy that aims to impact three big global issues: climate change, circularity and protection of our natural world.
We've come a long way
We're delighted to say that not only are we a more sustainable business, we’ve also saved thousands of pounds of operational costs.
One of our biggest wins is our electrification programme in our Hull factory and incorporating more renewable energy and energy efficiencies into our manufacturing process. We now match 100% of our operational electricity with renewable electricity with a three-pronged approach of Save More, Generate More and Buy More.
What our investments have achieved
We’ve invested in a £1m biomass boiler which we use to recover energy from just under 1,000 tonnes of panel cores per annum as well as more than 550 tonnes of waste-production sawdust.
From this, we can generate close to 3,000 megawatts of energy each year, saving a huge £86,000 in heating costs every year.
In addition, we have:
- Installed solar panels on the roof of our factory
- Swapped to LED and motion sensor lighting
- Purchased an electric crane
We now plan to roll this programme out across Tate's global businesses.
Of course, we may not achieve a financial return for every venture, but there is no doubt about the overall impact on our bottom line and it adds to the sustainability of our business.
