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April 21, 2008
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Ransomes Jacobsen’s new warehouse roof is attractive to the eye and to the business’ bottom line, saving 20 percent in heating costs. |
Because Ransomes Jacobsen’s turf care products maintain golf courses, public parks and football fields around the world, it places a special focus on the protection of the environment as a whole.
Two recent initiatives illustrate this commitment, demonstrating that environmentally-sound measures can also benefit the bottom line as well as attract customers. As an ISO 14001-certified business located on the United Kingdom’s southeast coast, Ransomes Jacobsen assesses the environmental impacts of everything that it does – from its business practices to its products.
So when the business considered what happens to discarded equipment, it developed a disposal program to protect and enhance the world around it. And when it came time
to replace its aging warehouse roof, they made sure to select one that was not only energy efficient, but would create more light to further reduce its electricity usage.
Where does turf equipment end up at the end of its life cycle? In many cases, it’s the local landfill or in a corner of the yard. In both scenarios, there is the real danger of hazardous materials from the discarded equipment seeping into the soil.
By introducing an End of Life Mower Disposal Program, or ELMO, Ransomes Jacobsen makes it easy for customers to safely dispose of equipment. It partnered with Autogreen, which manages a professional network of automotive dismantlers, to implement this first-in-the-industry program.
For the equipment owner, ELMO makes it easy: bring the equipment to a Ransomes Jacobsen dealer and Autogreen will pick up the equipment and remove the liquid materials, the electric and electronic equipment and batteries, leaving a steel carcass that will be crushed and made available for melting.
“We have introduced this program for turf equipment, long before legislation demands it because we think it’s the right thing to do,” says David Withers, Ransomes Jacobsen’s managing director. “We are a forward-thinking organization and recognize that we have a moral duty to do all we can do to protect our collective environment.”
A program like ELMO is important to customers, says Tim Lansdell, Ransomes Jacobsen’s technical director, because they, too, want to preserve the environment. Several customers had asked for such a program, says Lansdell, and they appreciate what Ransomes Jacobsen is doing.
Ransomes Jacobsen’s cavernous distribution warehouse was a cold place. The heat was turned on – high – most of the day and into the night during the fall and winter months to keep the workers comfortable as they prepared turf equipment product for shipment to customers from Iceland to India.
Keeping the heat on was not only costly to the business, it was wasteful. So Operations Director Malcolm Parkinson and his team looked upwards for inspiration. More specifically, they looked at replacing the aging, leaking roof.
With the help of an engineering consultant, the 45,000-square-foot asbestos roof was replaced with a lighter polyurethane roof with a thin inner and outer skin. The new roof, completed at the end of 2007, brought in sunlight and is saving the business 20 percent in heating costs.
“We’ve brought down thermostat by about 12 to 15 degrees and it’s only operating something like four to five hours a day in cold weather versus all of the time with the old roof,” Parkinson says.
With the lighter roof, there’s also a reduced need for lighting, further driving down energy costs. “There’s been a 25 percent improvement in lighting, so on a bright day you don’t have the need for lights on at all,” says Keith Stones, the works engineer.
The new roof also makes the warehouse a more attractive building for customers. “We want to use our site as a marketing tool and improve its overall look,” Parkinson says.
Plans are to bring 1,000 customers through the Ransomes Jacobsen campus in 2008, and an attractive warehouse building – and its commitment to the environment – only adds to the appeal.
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