The first stage of planting for our permaculture forest garden will take place very soon and we need your help! We are organising 3 volunteer days to kick start the project.

The first will be on Saturday 25th November and on this day we will be building compost bins and wormeries so that we can start composting our food waste.

The second and third days will be on Friday 8th and Saturday 9th December and on these days we will be planting the first set of trees in the garden.

If you'd like to volunteer for one or more of these days, please contact Joanna Southernwood by email on joanna@alara.co.uk.

Hope to see you there!

The Stern Review, published today, has generated a lot of media attention. The report estimates that the cost of mitigating climate change is likely to be around 1% of GDP. In contrast, having to deal with the consequences of climate change could cost up to 20% of GDP. This contradicts the popular view held by many economists that mitigating climate change is just too expensive and would damage the economy.

So why is this report being taken so seriously when others have not? Well it is mainy because the author, Sir Nicolas Stern, is a distinguished and very well respected economist - he was chief economist at the World Bank and has a great deal of experience. To find out more about the Stern review you can have a look at these news stories

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6096084.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6098362.stm

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1935211,00.html

A summary of the Stern review can be found here

Energy used to light offices and factories probably makes up quite a large proportion of a company’s electricity bill. That being the case, it’s worth taking a look at your system to find out how energy efficient it is. Are there any incandescent bulbs being used that could be replaced by compact fluorescent tubes?

Do you use linear fluorescent tubes for lighting and if yes, are they the most energy efficient ones available? Slim-line tubes with a tri-phosphor coating are more energy efficient than the old style thick tubes.

Do all the lights need to be on all the time? Could you install timer switches like these in toilets and changing rooms so that they’re not left on all the time? Or is it worth installing motion sensors so that lights automatically switch off when there is no one in the room?

For other ideas on how you can save energy and reduce your impact on the environment both as a business and as an individual, take a look at our Environmental Good Practice Tips…

If your company uses compressed air it’s worth regularly checking the system for leaks. Compressing air takes a lot of energy, making it a very expensive utility, particularly if there are leaks in the system.

Our compressor switches on when the system pressure drops below 8 barg and then switches off when the pressure reaches 9 barg. With a system like this, it’s quite easy to measure how much leakage there is. First, find a time when no equipment that uses compressed air is switched on – usually the end of the day when everyone has gone home. Wait for the system pressure to drop below 8 bar and then measure the time (T1) that the compressor needs to be on in order to charge the system back to 9 bar. When the compressor switches itself off, measure the time taken for the system pressure to drop below 8 bar again (T2). You can then calculate the leakage as a percentage using the following formula:

[T1/(T1 + T2)] x 100 = leakage (%)

When I first did this test, our compressor leakage was 10%. This meant that for 10% of the time that the compressor was on, it was purely feeding the leaks in the system. Our compressor was rated at 7.5 kW and was sometimes being left on overnight when nothing uses compressed air. By finding and fixing the leaks we reduced leakage to below 1.5% and we now make sure that compressors are switched off overnight where possible. This, combined with our other energy saving measures, is what helped to reduce our energy consumption by 10%.

We were able to reduce our leakage by so much because our system is quite small. In large plants with big compressors and many items of equipment using compressed air, it is common to have leakage of 20% and if you can get that down to 10% your doing very well.

Since this week is energy saving week I thought it would be a good idea to focus this week’s posts on energy saving initiatives. A couple of months ago I started a “Switch Off” campaign here at Alara and it has been a great success. Since the campaign started we have reduced our weekly energy consumption by around 10% - quite an achievement and at no cost to the business!

The “Switch Off” campaign involved making a list of all electrical equipment on site and then assigning someone to be responsible for turning each item off when it was not in use. In the factory, line leaders were made responsible for turning off all equipment on their production line and were asked to pay particular attention to items with moving parts like conveyors and fans. Signs were put up next to light switches reminding people to switch off lights when they leave. Posters were put up to remind people to save energy.

In the offices everyone who uses a PC was asked to switch off their computers and monitors overnight and to make use of the power saving options by setting computers to go to standby when they have been inactive for 15 minutes. Compressors were switched off where possible at the end of the day. Lights were switched off at lunchtime and at the end of the day. In order to get everyone on board with the idea, I first made a general announcement at the morning meeting. Then I put up notices and stickers reminding people to save energy. Then I went and spoke to individual line leaders and went through with them the list of equipment that they are responsible for. I spoke to the management team at the Management meeting and then to all the staff at the general staff meeting.

Overall, the campaign seems to have worked very well. We have seen a reduction in energy usage of around 10% and this has been maintained over the last 8 weeks. The little things really do make a difference.

Today is the start of Energy Saving Week. The Energy Saving Trust are asking everyone in the UK to commit to saving 20% of the energy that they use every day. Sounds like a daunting task? Well have a look at the Energy Saving Trust website every day to pick up energy saving tips.

To mark the start of the week and to emphasise why it's so important for individuals and businesses alike to save energy, the Energy Saving Trust released a report today entitled "Habits of a Lifetime". The report states that the UK is the worst country in Europe for energy efficiency and that this is caused mainly by people leaving appliances on standby, leaving mobile phone chargers plugged in and leaving lights on when they leave the room. This could account for as much as 43 million tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by 2010 and is the equivalent of the annual emissions from 7 million homes. Not only that but it will cost us around £11 billion in wasted energy! To read more about this report take a look at this article published today by the BBC.

The Habits of a Lifetime report reiterates statistics that have been published before that I wrote about in this post. Since that article was posted, we have made it our policy at Alara to switch off computers and monitors overnight. The database and networking issues that had been caused by switching off have been resolved so now there is no excuse!

Today a photographer from Camden Council came round to take pictures of Alara employees for their new publication Camden Street Stars. It features businesses who are doing their bit to recycle and reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill.

It proves that being a green business can have it's rewards in terms of good publicity. It is really turning into a good marketing tool for us and we hope that it will boost our business in the future.  

This an interesting article by George Monbiot warning that buying carbon offsets is not a solution to climate change, it is merely a way of easing our guilty conscience...

We recently signed up for the Mayor’s Green Procurement Code, which is being run by London Remade. This is a scheme was set up in 2001 in London to ensure that there is a market for recycled goods by encouraging businesses to buy recycled products. There are 4 levels of entry depending on how far you want to go with it. We signed up to level B1, (the second highest level), as we already buy quite a lot of recycled material.

London remade can help by putting your business in touch with sellers of materials with a recycled content. They can also help businesses to find ways of recycling their own waste and have a database that can match the type of waste produced to collection services or reprocessors. It is essentially a support and information service for businesses who want to reduce waste and increase their green credentials. We are now waiting to receive our “Toolkit” which all signatories to the code receive and will post again at a later date about how useful we find the scheme.

A report from Oxford University came out today claiming that Britain will not be able to meet its goals on climate change without curbing the demand for air travel. The full story is reported on the BBC website.

Many people don’t realise that there is no form of environmental tax on greenhouse gas emissions from airlines. They are not required to take part in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) where companies must reduce their emissions to below a certain threshold, and they do not qualify for the Climate Change Levy either. There are no financial incentives at all for an airline to reduce its emissions so most don’t bother – instead they try to fill more flights by advertising cheap fares. The only airline that is making an effort is Virgin who are taking steps to reduce emissions by towing their planes to the start of the runway rather than letting them taxi, which burns up precious fuel. Richard Branson also pledged that Virgin’s profits will go towards projects that will mitigate climate change. For further details, have a look at this story, also from the BBC. 

Air travel is one of the most polluting form of transport emitting 340 gram pf CO2 per mile compared with just 116 grams/mile from rail travel, (figures taken from this report). The Oxford University report claims that the government’s policies on aviation conflict with their policy on climate change and predicts that Britain will not meet it’s target of 60% reduction in emissions by 2050 without curbing the growth of aviation. However, aviation is also responsible in part for the growth in the economy – something that the government does not want to restrict. They are planning to include air travel in the EU Emssions Trading Scheme from 2008 but the report claims that this will not be enough.

Currently, aviation accounts for only 5.5% of UK emissions so the aviation industry claims that air travel does not make a significant impact on climate change. However, if the number of flights doubles, and all other industries reduce their emissions, they could quickly find that they account for a much larger percentage of UK emissions in just a few years.

I think that the problem now is that all other industries that have had to become part of the EU ETS or pay the climate change levy have a head start on airlines. There has just been no incentive in the past for airlines to reduce their emissions. I have not heard of any developments in clean air travel – there are no biofuels for planes for instance – so clean technology for aeroplanes is lagging behind clean technology for other industries. It’s only recently that air travel has come under the climate change spotlight and it will take time before any new ideas become a reality.

This article in yesterday’s Guardian states that ethical purchases will reach more than £2 billion by the end of the year. More people than ever are now thinking about what they are buying and are trying to shop with a clear conscience, particularly in the food sector. Not only that, but the rise in ethical consumerism is set to continue well into the future due to the rise in people’s disposable income and a change in consumer attitudes. 

This is important news for companies who are trying to be green or ethical. There is a whole market out there for ethical or sustainable products and that market is growing. A company who can tap into that growth is likely to do very well indeed. With this clear change in customer attitudes and purchasing habits set to continue, it is important that companies adapt to this developing market or risk being left behind. 

In this article I wrote about how we bought a baler so that we could start recycling all our plastic. This has been invaluable in helping us to achieve our 60% reduction in waste to landfill that I reported on in this article. However, even this system will need some modification...

One problem is that we are struggling to find a suitable place to keep it in our factory. The original location was too close to the area where the forklift trucks drive and was starting to get in the way. So we moved it to another location, however it appears that it's new home is not much better because pallets of finished product are sometimes stored in front of it making it impossible for our cleaners to get to the baler to load it.

The other problem is that blue plastic must be separated from clear plastic otherwise the reprocessor will not take it. This means that whilst a bale of clear plastic is being made, the blue plastic must sit next to the baler waiting to be baled. Sometimes there can be quite a build up.

We think that the solution will be to build a kind of shed for it outside so that it is not in the way of anyone working in the factory. It will also allow us to build in a little storage area so that plastic waiting to be baled can be neatly stored. Again, we realise that this will cost us, but it will also pay for itself by making the whole recycling system more user friendly and in the reduction in waste sent to landfill.

Our recycling systems are going to need some modifications if they are going to work effectively in the long term. In this article, I wrote about how paper and cardboard from Unit 1 are collected in a cage and moved over to Unit 2 to be put in our compactor and baled ready for recycling. Whilst this is working in the short term, it is creating a lot of extra work for our mixers who must load the paper sacks into the cage, our forklift drivers who must move the cage to and from the compactor, and our cleaners who must empty the cage. It is a logistical nightmare as if the cleaners are busy, the cage doesn’t get emptied which means there is a build up of paper sacks and cardboard on the mixing floor.

There is a lot of labour tied up in keeping the system working and those people could be doing other jobs in the meantime. The solution is to install a compactor in Unit 1 similar to that in Unit 2 so that paper sacks and waste cardboard can be baled for recycling at the point of generation. A compactor is quite an expensive item, however it’s worth it if it makes recycling easy and ensures that recyclable materials are kept out of landfill. We think it will also pay for itself fairly quickly in savings on labour costs.

As I sat on the train on the way home today, I couldn't help overhearing the conversation of two people sitting behind me. They were talking about how heavily it rained earlier on in the day. "Probably something to do with that global warming" one said to the other.

I was very encouraged by this comment - it shows that the message is finally getting through to people. Now, I'm not trying to say that the torrential rain we experienced today was all because of global warming, but I think it's great that people are talking and thinking about it. It's the first step in getting people to take action.

All our printers here take toner cartridges. There are a whole range of companies out there who now offer a toner and ink jet cartridge recycling service. If you get through enough of them, some companies will provide you with a box to put them in, a free collection service and might even pay you a small amount for them. Other companies provide a free post address that you can send them to. Several charities also collect printer cartridges as they can collect the revenue from them by selling them to a reprocessor

Since we don't get through that many toner cartridges, we use Green Tech because they provide a free post down-loadable label that you can stick to the toner box and put in the post. They donate a small amount to charity for each cartridge we send and give a comprehensive guide to how the cartridges are recycled on their website.

We will also buy re-manufactured cartridges in the future as it's only worth recycling them if there is a market for the recycled product. I have heard that re-manufactured ones just as good as original cartridges and they are also much cheaper which is a bonus!

I posted this article a couple of weeks ago about sending food waste to Camley Street Natural Park for them to feed the squirrels and birds. Well it seems that the squirrels and birds didn’t like our muesli much! We took a bag of our spillages down to them to put in bird feeders and on bird tables but it didn’t seem to go down too well with the local wildlife who apparently have more appetizing things on their menu at this time of year.

Also when it rained the oats (which are the main ingredient) went soggy and clumped together making it much less appealing. So that was a bit of a set back, although the Natural Park will still take any bags of seeds or nuts that we can’t use – it seems it’s just the oats the birds don’t like – we took them a bag of walnuts today.

Undeterred by this minor technical hitch, we went in search of another outlet for muesli spillages and after a few phone calls, we found Coram’s Fields Community Farm. They are situated about a mile away from us and have a range of animals like sheep, goats, ducks and hens and jumped at the chance of some animal feed, so we have arranged to take our spillages round to them a couple of times a month. Hopefully the animals there will enjoy it!

I saw this article in the Independent today. It talks about the importance of switching off computers at night and how office workers who don't do so are adding to climate change. According to the article, which cites the PC energy report, over 2 million computers are left on each night and that this could account for as much as 200,000 tonnes of carbon emissions each year.  

We have tried to bring in a policy of switching off computers at night here at Alara but have had problems with it so far because switching them off seems to cause problems with our databases when we switch back on again the next day. I am working to resolve this issue. However, it's also a matter of getting people to remember to do it and to realise how important it is to do so and this can be the more difficult issue.

It can be very difficult to motivate people to do this simple task because it is seem as unnecessary and inconvenient - after all, how much energy can one little LED use? Well, this article by an envionmental consultant group suggests that a computer on standby uses about 2.5 watts. Now that's not much on it's own but remember that there are 2 million computers left in this state every night and over the weekend!

If the working day is 8 hours, then the computer is on standby for 16 hours every day during the week and 24 hours for 2 days at the weekend. That's 128 hours a week. 0.0025kW x 128 hours per week x 52 weeks per year x 2 million computers = 33.28 million kilowatt hours per year!!

So to all you skeptics who say that switching off makes no difference, I say that it will make a big difference if everyone does it. Make a difference - switch off your computer when you go home tonight!

One very easy way to reduce the environmental footprint of your business is to switch from using virgin office paper for printing and writing to using 100% recycled paper. Recycled paper is no longer that thin, low quality, slightly grey, very fibrous paper that you could barely write on never mind print on that it was a few years ago. There have been advancements in paper making technology and now you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between virgin and recycled paper.

We’ve been using 100% recycled paper for a while now without any problems at all - we buy it from Viking Direct but there are several other suppliers who stock it. In addition it’s very good value. The only paper that is cheaper than recycled on Viking’s website is their economy copier paper which is not such good quality even though it is the same weight. The other important point is that it’s all very well sending paper to be recycled, but that’s no good if there’s no market for the end product. That makes it even more important to buy recycled whenever you can. So switch to recycled paper – do it today!

We have recently seen a dramatic reduction in the amount of waste that we are sending to landfill. We have managed to reduce the amount of waste that we put in our bins for collection by 60% - a great achievement!

So what’s the secret of our success? Well when I looked in the bins to find out what we were throwing away, the majority of it was paper sacks, cardboard and plastic. Since we already have a compactor in Unit 2 specifically to bale paper and cardboard for recycling, it was clear that all the paper and cardboard in the bins must come from Unit 1. The solution? To collect it all in a cage and empty the cage into the compactor once a day (see post on Paper and Cardboard Recycling for more details). It’s generated a little more work for our cleaners (as they have to empty the cage) but now they have got used to the system it is working very well.

We also bought a baler to deal with all the plastic (see post Recycling Plastic Waste) so the majority of our clear and blue plastic waste is now baled up and collected for recycling.

A 60% reduction in waste to landfill is fantastic, but it’s that last 40% that will be the most difficult to eliminate. We’re working on it though…

Most of our ingredients come in boxes or large paper sacks, so there’s a lot of waste paper and cardboard on our site. I’ve already spoken about how we send around 200 boxes to a local wholesaler for reuse (see post Reusing boxes) but that doesn’t account for all the paper and cardboard that is generated on site.

We have 2 factories situated opposite each other. In Unit 1 there is only one packing line. All the waste boxes get reused and all the paper sacks and broken boxes get collected into a cage, which is then emptied into a compactor over in Unit 2.

In Unit 2 there are 5 packing lines. All the boxes and paper sacks that are generated here are put into a Kenbay Rotopac Compactor. This unit crushes all the card and paper that is fed into it so that it takes up much less volume and bales it into large black plastic sacks. The bags of card and paper are then collected for recycling. The compactor is sited at the point where the most cardboard and paper is generated – the mixing floor. The mixer operators just open up the boxes/sacks, load the ingredients into the mixer and throw the boxes into the compactor instead of into a bin – an easy system. It’s important to make recycling as easy as possible otherwise people won’t do it.

Once again I will quote the saying, one man's trash is another man's treasure - this time it's in reference to buying second hand, used, refurbished or reconditioned goods. In most cases, used goods are just as good as new ones and are also somewhat cheaper.

Today I was looking for stainless steel catering tables for use in our production areas. New ones cost around £200 each. Refurbished ones cost around £85 each. Caterquip, a company who specialise in refurbished catering equipment, quoted me a total price of £250 for 3 reconditioned stainless steel tables. There will be a £40 delivery charge on top of that but still, that’s 3 reconditioned tables for a total cost of £290 instead of 3 new ones for £600 – a massive saving! And in terms of quality, there’s not much difference between them.

To give another example, when I joined Alara nearly 3 months ago, I needed a filing cabinet. A new 2-drawer Bisley filing cabinet costs £120, but I bought mine second hand for £50. Another great saving. It’s got a few scratches on it and a couple of small dents but since it’s only me who’ll be looking at it, that doesn’t really matter. It stores all my documents just as well as a new one would.

The key thing to remember when making purchases is that it’s important to keep as much out of landfill as possible. If there were no market for second hand or used items then they might just be disposed of in landfill so it’s important to buy second hand when you can. And in most cases it’s cheaper too which is a bonus! Here are a few websites that we’ve found useful for sourcing used goods – mainly office equipment.

1st Choice Office Furniture
Green Works
Office Furniture Desks and Chairs
Smith's Office Furniture

Some things seem to be easier to get hold of than others - I had no trouble finding second hand office furniture but am struggling to find second hand lockers for the changing rooms...