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| 19/01/2010 |
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| Macrae Edinburgh Reduces Carbon Footprint by 13% |
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Macrae Edinburgh’s annual environment audit has revealed significant environmental success with a reduction of 13% on its carbon footprint. Electricity usage has dropped by 6.5%, gas by over 18%, water by 21% and effluent discharge by 24%. The company, a dedicated supplier of seafood products to Waitrose, has also taken 180 tonnes of cardboard packaging out of the business by working together with Waitrose on a new delivery model and more streamlined packaging.
The savings in electricity is the equivalent of powering 65 four bedroom homes and gas, 50 homes.
Roy Cunningham, managing director of Macrae Edinburgh, said:
“We moved into this new purpose built factory in Livingston in 2007. Despite having transferred into an environmentally sensitively designed facility we’ve since made substantial in-roads in environmental improvements in two key areas – our utility usage and the packaging that we use for our end product. We are working on the rest, such as achieving zero landfill, and are committed to reducing our carbon footprint year-on-year.
“The improvements have been made by investing in new energy saving features and in instilling a culture of reduce, reuse and recycle within the business. Over the last two years we’ve saved 75 tonnes of carbon through utility reduction alone. The benefits of making these changes are not only environmental. For instance, by installing motion sensor lighting throughout the facility, we’ve saved £45,000 a year.
“Not all energy reduction has been achieved through physical investment. Reducing water usage through simply applying lower pressures to systems throughout the facility has had an impact both on water and gas usage - you use less water and you need less gas to heat it. Lights have been adapted with motion sensor lighting and air handling units were fitted with variable drives to cope with the peaks and troughs of the factory’s production schedule.”
On the packaging side, Macrae Edinburgh has worked with Waitrose on a new store delivery model over the course of the past 12 months. Products selected for each Waitrose food shop are put into reusable plastic trays which are uplifted from the factory for delivery to the stores and then returned to the factory to begin the whole cycle again. This has resulted in 150 tonnes of cardboard which would have been used to carry the products being removed from the process. This reduction complements the coordinated action with Waitrose to remove all unnecessary packaging from the products themselves saving an additional 30 tonnes of cardboard.
Based in a purpose-built 64,000 sq ft factory in Livingston, Macrae produces cold smoked salmon and trout, hot smoked and poached fish, seafood pates, seafood cocktails, speciality canapés and speciality entertaining products, amounting to over 70 individual product lines.
Now part of The Seafood Company, the UK’s largest and fastest growing seafood company, Macrae Edinburgh has grown significantly since its inception in 1998, with turnover rising from £2m to £25m and staff numbers growing from 25 to 260.
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