(Newswire Today) —  Bury, Lancashire, United Kingdom, 2009-08-25 - Lloyds Quality Assurance has renewed Senior Hargreaves ISO 14001:2004 accreditation for another year.

The company, whose ductwork features on many of the UK’s landmark commercial and industrial buildings, reports significant benefits in all business operations. Hargreaves’ commitment to reduce their environmental impact involves looking at all material and energy inputs to the business, all waste streams and all internal processes. As a result carbon dioxide emissions, energy use and materials going to landfill are all continuously reduced.

Director Dave Lutkevitch explained, “Far from being a burden and a cost, it contributes to greater competitiveness, gives all our people something positive to focus on and is a great morale booster. Externally, it conveys positive messages to our clients and partners. The programme has positive benefits throughout the company.”

There have been tangible reductions in energy use, carbon footprint and waste. The programme so far has saved at total equivalent of 48.2 tonnes of CO2 to atmosphere. To take the reduction in waste output as a just one example, the company has reduced material going to landfill by 30 tonnes in the last year. This has required 15 fewer collections, giving a direct monetary saving of £2430. The reduced waste handling, transport and disposal alone is equivalent to saving 13.4 tonnes of carbon emissions to atmosphere.

Hargreaves (hargreaves-ductwork.co.uk) separates out distinct waste streams so that metal, plastics and so on go to specialised re-processors for recovery. The general commercial waste that remains is taken away by specialist waste processors Wheeldon Brothers who hand sort the waste to recover around 80 percent of the material so that only the irreducible minimum goes into landfill.

“In the construction industry there is an increasing expectation by clients that we will have an environmental policy in place. We are ahead of many competitors by having accreditation for our EMS and proof of its effectiveness,” explained environment manager Gary Bell. “It is important to view the EMS, like the pursuit of quality objectives, as a journey not just one off set of changes. As we move further into this I feel confident that we will see increasing benefits as more minds are exercised on making change.”

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