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Hambleside Danelaw's environmental credentials boosted by Planet Positive™ certification
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Group's landfill waste now equivalent to ordinary British household's
Multi-environmental award winning Hambleside Danelaw, which manufactures insulated GRP rooflights and other roofing materials in Inverness and Daventry, has been certified as Planet Positive™ by leading carbon solutions company dcarbon8.
The Group is also on track to achieve by the end of 2007 a reduction in its total landfill waste from 904 tonnes in 2001 to approximately 3 tonnes – the latter being equivalent to the waste of the average British household. This achievement should be measured against the fact that Hambleside Danelaw is manufacturing circa 1.5 million square metres of roofing materials each year.
Hambleside Danelaw has gained Planet Positive™ certification because its design and production processes already embody an environmentally responsible footprint which is imperative to receiving certification. The Planet Positive™ mark will inform contractors that Hambleside's business carbon footprint, the volume of greenhouse gasses generated by the company's manufacturing and distribution processes, is more than offset by activities that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The certification relates to the processes behind all of the Group's building products and Hambleside Danelaw is currently the only UK rooflight manufacturer to carry the Planet Positive™ mark. Other leading companies in the building industry, who are members of dcarbon8 and are working towards Planet Positive™ certification, include CA Group.
As well as meeting high environmental objectives, dcarbon8's off-site projects around the developing world seek to improve the social and economic well-being of the local area. This can be done in many ways, for example, reducing energy costs, improving employment, education, health or saving habitats and wildlife.
Hambleside Danelaw has chosen to support two of dcarbon8's selected projects: the first is a hydroelectric power plant connected to the national grid in Guatemala, which provides a constant source of renewable energy that has significantly reduced the country's demand for fossil-fuel generated electricity. The second project aims to install solar panels into remote, rural schools in the Eastern Cape of South Africa with the additional installation of much needed ICT and internet facilities.
Robin Jeffery, Hambleside's vice-chairman, said: “The Planet Positive™ certification is perhaps the strongest indication yet to our clients that we wish to be seen as a market leader for environmental responsibility in the building industry. A major attraction of being a dcarbon8 member is that we can work with the company's experts to constantly source further improvements in our sustainability performance.”
Janet Kidner of dcarbon8 said: “I saw on my recent visit to the Group's manufacturing facility in Inverness the significant steps that Hambleside Danelaw has taken to set a carbon footprint benchmark which, in our experience, only a few others in the building industry currently match. But dcarbon8 is encouraged that the sharing of best environmental practice in the sector is really starting to gather pace.”
Hambleside Danelaw is now working with dcarbon8 to certify their products as Planet PositiveTM; this will include a detailed carbon footprint analysis of its products. When this process is complete, contractors who purchase products from Hambleside Danelaw will be given dcarbon8 carbon credits to select rigorously approved carbon offset projects for further investment
