Climate change and sustainable manufacturing
Creating a more sustainable manufacturing process for our customers, our people and the planet sits at the heart of Essentra’s new Centre of Excellence.
A specialist team at our Kidlington headquarters in the UK, is developing ways to minimize negative environmental impacts to lower emissions, reduce the impact on nature and help our customers in the manufacturing sector achieve their sustainability goals.
"Sustainability, and in particular climate change, is both the biggest risk and the biggest opportunity we all face.”
Jennifer Spence
Head of Sustainability Strategy, Essentra
The challenge to address it head on began in 2020 when the business set a target to make 20% of all its manufactured polymer products sustainable by 2025. It’s one of several sustainability targets in Essentra's Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) strategy. Now, the Centre of Excellence will further progress by innovating and developing more sustainable options across the thousands of diverse products Essentra offers.
Putting sustainable manufacturing processes in the spotlight
Testing and trialing to ensure materials are sustainable and can be broken down or used again at the end of the product life cycle is a key objective of the new Centre’s expert team. Chris Butler, Engineering Director, says: “It’s about putting sustainability at the heart of our manufacturing process, in a factory of the future that looks at the use of the product and finds a solution that fits.”
Jennifer says: "The challenge for us is making sure that anything we create in our manufacturing operation not only reduces energy usage and carbon emissions during its creation, but also that it's reusable, recyclable, or compostable at the end of its life.”
Minimizing negative environmental impacts
"Our researchers share a passion for creating a range of solutions tailored specifically to the best, most sustainable fit for the product", says Jennifer. “Some products may be used by customers once, and so we might want those components to break down or compost at the end of their life, while others are reused over and over again.”
Scott Fawcett, Chief Executive Officer at Essentra, says investment in new infrastructure to process new materials and reduce energy intensity of processes will accelerate the company's drive towards improved sustainability. "The Centre of Excellence is about us testing lots of new materials, both recycled content and bio-based materials, to really help us reduce the carbon impact of the products we manufacture and therefore help our customers reduce the carbon impact of the products that they manufacture."
The new Centre will also be able to supply supporting data to customers requesting more detailed information about the components, its environmental benefits and sustainable manufacturing processes Essentra is using. Jennifer says: “We want our existing and new customers to come and see the good work we’re doing and to show them the products we’re developing.”
Supporting ESG strategy
Visitors will be encouraged to see first-hand how the Centre will be a game-changer for Essentra, supporting the business in its ESG strategy, and particularly our Components pillar. This is one of the five pillars in the strategy which also includes: our Planet; our Customers; our Culture; and our Communities.
Chris explains how the Components pillar and the processes that sit around it will champion the Centre's sustainability credentials. "As well as handling various types of testing, mainly around materials, it will also help us test our tooling technologies and injection molding processes to become more efficient and reduce scrap rates – as well as speeding up our delivery of products."
The remaining four pillars will also benefit hugely from the Centre's work. They are: Planet, climate change and what we can do to reduce our emissions; Customers, how we can best provide our customers with the services they need to create a low carbon future; Culture, how we interact with our people as we transition to a low carbon business model and Communities, our supply chain because we won't be able to do this without their collaboration.
Preparing our people for a more sustainable future
Training will play a pivotal part in the Centre’s growth to make sure Essentra employees have the right skills for a future with sustainable manufacturing at its core, says Jennifer. “We have a lot of people coming through now, younger people for whom the natural environment and carbon footprints are a huge cause of anxiety. They want to work for a company that’s doing something about it, so we're also making sure we're attracting the best people by focusing on this."
"The challenge is making sure we’re giving people the right skills for the future by improving their knowledge on sustainability, renewable energy and sustainable production to make sure that when we transition, we bring our people along with us,” she continues. Essentra’s challenge is the same one many businesses are facing – the need to rapidly decarbonize and conserve energy.
A fresh look at sustainable manufacturing
Jennifer adds: “Sustainability is right there front and center in our purpose, we help customers to build a sustainable future."
"Right from the top, we're being very clear that sustainability is very important to us as a business. I'm proud to say we have technically brilliant people here who are very enthusiastic about sustainability."
"We've committed to science-based targets and will be submitting our emissions reduction targets for approval this year. That means our targets will be ambitious and aligned to the latest science-based thinking."
"Sustainability is a constantly changing landscape,” says Jennifer, “so we need to make sure that not only are we working to the highest standard now, but we're also horizon scanning and looking at what's coming up in the future. That way we can support what we do with detailed transition plans, so we have actions to back up how we're going to meet those targets."
The environmental goals are clear drivers behind the new Centre. To be Net Zero by 2040 for direct operations and by 2050 across the value chain, to have 20% of raw materials from sustainable natural resources by 2025 and to have all Essentra sites Zero Waste to Landfill certified by 2030, at the latest.