Hereford-based company Taylor Lane Timber Frame Ltd is celebrating after winning an award for reducing the amount of waste produced at its Rotherwas site.
The Herefordshire Business Environment Association, a partnership project between Herefordshire Council and Groundwork West Midlands Environment Charity, presented the waste reduction award to the firm during its annual celebration of the association's success in providing environmental seminars, advice and support to businesses in the county
Taylor Lane, which manufactures pre-fabricated timber-frame panels, roof and floor systems and has an annual turnover of £15 million, received the award for a waste minimisation initiative taken as part of their environmental management strategy, to reduce paper use and waste at their Chapel Road offices.
The firm's BEA charter status has also been raised from bronze to silver, in recognition of further environmental and energy saving improvements that have been carried out on all three Taylor Lane sites at Rotherwas.
Georgina Smith, senior environmental business adviser for the Herefordshire BEA, said: "I am delighted Taylor Lane has received this award, showing what a difference small measures can make."
"Any firms who would like to find out more about making their company more sustainable are welcome to get in touch with the Hereford Business Environment Association," she added.
Work by Paul Jury, the firm's newly-appointed Quality Systems and Environmental Management Co-ordinator, along with Paula McGivern, of Herefordshire Council was carried out to "green up" the firm by developing a new environmental and energy policy in order to achieve BS 8555 using the Acorn accreditation scheme.
Paula, Herefordshire Council's Rotherwas Travel Plan co-ordinator, spent a month's placement at Taylor Lane as part of her studies for a Bulmer Foundation MA course in Sustainable Development Advocacy and helped carry out a review of the company's waste, setting up monitoring systems and seeking ways to reduce the amount sent to landfill.
Paul said: "Once our directors endorsed the revised environmental policy we started by introducing simple steps for raising awareness in the workplace which lead to providing alternative options of waste disposal and encouraging staff to recycle. After providing facilities for recycling we found we were able to reduce the number of industrial waste containers on site at Chapel Road by up to 50 per cent."
"We also looked into production processes - within our factories finding ways to re-use waste timber, utilising it to store timber stacks, to help with loading and off loading processes, rather than using new timber as had been done previously," he added.
Negotiations are now taking place to install a fuel processing plant for the Gatehouse Road production site and to upgrade the existing plant at the Thorn Factory site. These plants will further reduce the company's fuel costs as the wood waste will be used to re-heat the factories.
The firm also launched its awareness promotion using Carbon Trust free resources. Posters urging the firm's 140 staff to switch off lights when they leave rooms and to turning off computers when not in use, are all part of the drive to save energy costs and reducing the company's carbon footprint.
Dave Baldwin, health and safety manager at Taylor Lane, said: "We were very pleased and surprised to win the award but won't be resting on our laurels and will hope to keep on improving until we gain the top platinum standard and make further cost savings by careful resource use in line with our environmental policy."