The climate impacts the life-threatening situations in which our products and services help save lives. Working towards our climate goal, building in more circularity and the targeted use of resources will help us mitigate and adapt to protect our planet.
We strive to operate to high standards and we operate an environmental management system. In addition to maintaining our existing ISO 14001 accreditation at two sites, we have achieved further certification at our site in Cadillac bringing this to three out of five manufacturing sites.
Last year we identified seven action areas for the business to focus on and verify over the coming years, to reduce our scope 1 and 2 emissions, and in parallel begin assessment of scope 3 emissions. These actions include:
- embed a net zero mindset and assign accountability;
- assess energy efficiency options;
- assess renewable electricity options;
- reduce natural gas consumption;
- reduce other scope 1 impacts;
- consider residual emissions; and
- assess scope 3 emissions.
During FY23, cross-functional net zero teams were established at each site to encourage collaboration and increase engagement in support of net zero action 1. Each team reviewed the net zero actions with a focus on actions 2 and 3 where there were possible win-wins. The outputs were used to set targets for next year.
We plan to achieve our emission reductions next year, largely supported by actions 2 to 4 and underpinned by employee engagement (action 1). Next year we will review this exercise and intend to expand the scope to align it with our five year business planning process.
Our energy consumption in FY23 was 27,058 MWh; of this, the U.K. accounted for 45% of global energy use, we continue to see a reduction in energy use across our U.K. sites. Following the exit of the Armour business and resulting restatement we can see an improved trend for our U.S. sites. This year we are reporting 6.5% increase in the Group’s energy use.
While verifying net zero actions, our net zero teams identified opportunities to reduce energy consumption which were actioned this year:
- An air loss survey carried out in Cadillac identified 47 air leaks which have been resolved.
- Two sites have been switching to LED lighting and where suitable automating lighting systems.
- One site has undertaken window tinting and door upgrades to improve temperature regulation and reduce loss of heat and air.
- A process for press temperature reductions has been established for periods of inactivity and encouraged through operator engagement and improved signage.
Kaizens have continued at all sites throughout the year which have identified opportunities to improve processes and are likely to have resulted in additional energy consumption improvements.
A representative at each of our sites has responsibility for the reporting of energy use throughout the year. The collected data allows us to calculate and monitor carbon emissions.
This year we restated our baseline scope 1 and 2 emissions to account for our exit of the Armour business. This significantly lowered our scope 1 and 2 emissions and intensity metric. This adjustment has been factored into target setting and means we have set our targets against a much lower and more challenging baseline for next year.
In FY23, we reported our carbon emissions amount to 6,986 (tCO2e location based); of this, the U.K. accounted for 32%. U.K emissions have increased despite reduced energy use due in part to the conversion factors applied. Our market based scope 2 emissions reflect the sourcing decisions during the period which will be fully realised in FY24, demonstrating a 1.4% reduction in scope 1 and 2 globally. With a revenue of $243.8 million this gives us an intensity figure of 28.7 tCO2e per $m of revenue. The exit of our Armour business was a significant project and this year we restated our intensity figure to reflect this, resulting in a 39% improvement for FY22 (restated from 39.9 tCO2e per $million revenue).
In FY23, we assessed the most relevant and influenceable elements of our scope 3 emissions. We conducted a screening exercise to determine this, considering factors such as ability to influence, anticipated size, sector guidance and data accessibility, which identified several exclusions not relevant to our business model; category 14 franchises and category 15 investment. We identified categories which were not expected to significantly contribute to total scope 3 emissions, where reporting would be impractical and difficult to calculate; category 10 processing of sold products, category 11 use of sold products and category 12 end of life treatment of sold products.
Based on this work and the use of EEIO modelling, purchased goods are understood to be the largest contributor to our footprint. We will work towards improving our disclosure of material scope 3 categories and will disclose this in full by 2025. We intend to build a more precise knowledge of emissions from purchased goods and plan to do this through the collection of scope 1 and 2 data from our supply chain which will be included in an enhanced survey.
We centralised the reporting of water usage from all manufacturing sites with the exception of one facility that does not receive water bills. Water usage is limited to mainly domestic use, for drinking, sanitary disposal and landscaping and this year we can report that across two sites we used 15,046m3 of water. Where water discharges do occur due to product testing, they are disposed of in line with local government procedures.
We established centralised tracking and monitoring of different waste streams by destination for all manufacturing sites which will enable us to report waste figures for all manufacturing sites in FY24. This year we can report across two sites that we disposed 567 tonnes of waste.
We have worked with our waste carriers to understand our waste disposal opportunities and started to assess the associated carbon emissions. One site installed a waste compactor to generate waste handling efficiencies and reduce the number of waste collection trips.
We carried out an awareness campaign and and provided information on the waste hierarchy to help employees make better waste disposal choices. Alongside this we updated waste signage for certain waste streams to improve visibility of opportunities to recycle and discourage the use of general waste bins.
Any hazardous waste generated, as defined by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is disposed of in line with local guidelines.
There have been no environmental incidents as defined by the U.K. or U.S. Environment Agencies at any of our sites or in relation to our supply chain throughout the 2023 financial year.