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All the electricity used by ABG Geosynthetics for the manufacture of its geocomposite and geocellular products is now certified to come from renewable sources.
The switch to a renewable energy supplier is just one of several recent initiatives introduced by ABG to reduce its environmental impact, explains managing director Alan Bamforth. “We have signed up to the UK Civil Engineers’ Emergency Climate Change Declaration, and demonstrating our commitment to optimizing our energy use and reducing carbon emissions is one of the key obligations. Ensuring all the electricity we use comes from renewable resources greatly reduces our carbon footprint and helps us improve the sustainability of our operations and products.”
Monitoring Our Environmental Impact
As well as switching to a net zero carbon emissions energy tariff, ABG has appointed Carbon Footprint Ltd, a leading carbon management organization, to measure the exact carbon emissions made by the company and for each of the products it manufactures for geotechnical and sustainable drainage applications. This includes the assessment of a wide range of drainage geocomposites, typically consisting of a cuspated polyethylene (HDPE) core with a geotextile thermally bonded to one or both sides to create optimal water and gas flow in a variety of civil engineering applications. The verification means ABG is certified to use the ‘Carbon Footprint Standard’ branding on company documentation and product information and allows more precise embodied carbon data to be given for customer’ project and supply chain assessments.
The analysis of ABG’s carbon emissions in 2019 revealed that 75% were directly attributable to electricity consumption from its manufacturing operations (distribution results at right), and this prompted the move to reduce the output with a move to using a 100% biomass energy tariff, with net zero carbon emissions saving 675.6 T CO2e (bottom right).
Focus on minimizing our carbon emissions is aligned with ABG Geosynthetics’ focus to design and implement carbon saving for its clients. By switching to light weight and more efficient geocomposite drainage and geocellular containment systems, the carbon output vs. traditional granular drainage methods is significant.
In fact, ABG calculates that to be a savings of 23,000 T CO2e for the total of the products supplied in 2019. To find out more about ABG’s carbon footprint initiative and the savings vs traditional methods visit: https://abg-geosynthetics.com/technical/carbon-footprint-reduction/
