Sustainability in Action as Billingham Site Reduces Energy Burden

The Manufacturing Science Centre at Billingham, UK.

One of Johnson Matthey’s sustainability targets is to halve the key resources consumed per unit of output by 2017. The Manufacturing Science Centre (MSC), part of the Johnson Matthey Technology Centre, based at our Billingham site in the UK, has made great strides towards this group target – achieving cash savings along the way.

The MSC is a large scale research and development facility for investigating manufacturing processes and manufacturing materials (including catalysts), both at a pilot and commercial scale, where energy is a key resource. The MSC team agreed that they should look to set some firm sustainability targets and decided to make reducing energy its first aim.

The whole team got together to think about how this could be achieved. They considered the energy implications of everything, however large or small, from simply switching off the lights when leaving the office to major projects to deliver hot water more efficiently.

Changes of all kinds were made. Temperature programmed cycles of the drying and calcination processes were modified and eight individual laboratory water heaters were replaced with a calorifier – a single unit that delivers hot water more efficiently to the labs. All these changes required only minimal capital investment.

Progress updates were given at the monthly team meetings where new ideas were also considered. For the 12 months between January and December 2008 the MSC reduced its electricity use by 35.8% – equivalent to a reduction of some 83 tonnes of CO₂. There were cash benefits from saving electricity too – a saving of £19,331 in 2008, compared to consumption in 2007. These reductions, moreover, were achieved against a backdrop of increased workload at the MSC and a higher number of employees.

So what next? First, consolidating what was achieved in 2008 and then improving on it. The team have set a target that will be challenging to meet, given the reductions already delivered and the fact that the MSC continues to grow both in people numbers and workload, but they are ready to give it a go.

And the contribution to Sustainability 2017? The project so far has not only helped reduce electricity consumption, one of the MSC’s key resources, it has also contributed to Johnson Matthey’s carbon neutrality target and saved money into the bargain.

Sustainability in Action as Billingham Site Reduces Energy Burden

Other Environment Case Studies