June 24, 2024Energy Management Systems – Injection Molding 1Injection molding machines have ‘base’ and ‘process’ loads and an idling machine is not ‘free’, it is costing large amounts of energy and money. Read more
May 29, 2024Sustainability Management Strategies – Set up a Sustainability Management ProgramSustainability management is a continuing process that must become an integral part of the business operations. Sustainability management is not a single act but a process. Read more
April 16, 2024Energy Management Systems – The Gas BillMost plastics processing sites use gas simply for space heating but some processes use gas as part of the process, e.g., rotational molding. Where gas is used for hot water only then this is generally relatively constant over the year. For space heating, the gas use load will be related to the weather conditions (how cold it is) and the weather is then a ‘condition’ driver for gas use. Read more
April 3, 2024Sustainability Management Strategies – Prepare a Sustainability Road Map for your CompanySustainability will not be ‘completed’ in one or two years. It is a long-term program that will define and change how a company operates in the future. The sustainability road map a prioritized set of actions designed to get a company from where it is today to where needs to be in the future. Read more
March 14, 2024Energy Management Systems – Assessing PerformanceIn most plastics processing electricity is the main energy source. Electricity use is not, as is sometimes thought, fixed and uncontrollable, it is variable and controllable. For most sites, the electricity use will be directly related to the production volume in a given time period. Read more
February 21, 2024Sustainability Management Strategies – Map Actions on MaterialityThe materiality of an issue is another way of asking ‘how relevant and important is it?’. This is considered from two perspectives, those of the broader stakeholders (internal and external) and those of the company itself. Read more
January 25, 2024Energy Management Systems – The Electricity BillMany sites simply get the energy bill from the supplier and pay this some days later by direct transfer from their bank. The bill is not examined for accuracy or for potential areas to reduce costs and sometimes the production people don’t even see a copy of the bill – even though they are responsible for using most of the energy. Read more
January 16, 2024Sustainability Management Strategies – Review where you are in Sustainability ManagementMost companies would like to improve their sustainability but they do not know where to start and do not have a method of assessing their current status. Without knowing where you are starting from it is impossible to plot a route to where you want to get to. Read more
January 2, 2024Energy Management Systems – Site SurveysCarrying out a full site survey is a specialist task but a mini-survey or walk-around will quickly and easily identify many actions to reduce energy use. Naturally, the focus will be on using that essential tool called the ’OFF switch’ but this can have remarkable rewards very quickly. Read more