Counting the Trucost of an EMS

Philip Kirk, senior partner of Steelclad Systems, is aware of the demands that working with steel makes on the environment. The company manufactures self-storage units and Kirk is cautious about minimising wastage of materials. Installing an EMS demonstrates responsibility for sustainable manufacturing now and in the future.

“We were happy to measure everything, from labour to suppliers,” says Kirk, “Many unquoted companies do not need to bare all or declare their environmental performance but we felt it needed to be done to achieve sustainable business practice. Another benefit is that we can communicate our performance to our customers.”

Supply chain

Kirk also welcomes the discussion regarding the role of business and industry in sustainable development and environmental issues.

He concludes, “We’ve made a start but we can’t do it on our own. It would take my suppliers to change the way they extract iron ore and produce the materials to make a dramatic change in how environmentally friendly my company is. It’s a long chain but everyone’s got to get involved if we’re going to make a difference.”

Simon Thomas, chairman of Trucost, adds, “The manufacturing industry is under pressure to produce environmental reports and the steel industry has traditionally had a reputation for running unsustainable businesses. Based on economic principles, Trucost enables large and small companies to easily communicate total environmental performance to all key stakeholders.”

The Trucost environmental system has taken two years and £2.5m to develop. With it, companies are benchmarked on their actual performance and SMEs can be compared fairly to multinationals.