Stationary manufacturer Maped Helix has committed to reducing its carbon footprint by a third by the year 2026 as it seeks to play its part in the UK’s push toward carbon neutrality by 2050.
Part of that pledge has seen the company throw its support behind three of the United Nations’ sustainable development goals, namely quality education, responsible consumption and production, and taking action on climate.
Maped Helix managing director, Gray Richmond, commented: “The basic concept of what we’re doing is increased effort for less carbon. Manufacturing generates carbon emissions, and this is something we are very aware of, so in order to make our products as green as possible, we have to make changes to how we do things.”
The Maped Group’s collective carbon footprint in 2018 was 80,340 of CO2, equivalent to the combustion of 182,800 barrels of oil or 9,300 plane trips around the world. For Richmond, the sheer scale of that carbon output meant that there was no alternative but to make changes with sustainability in mind.
“We had to think about how we could re-invent our products. 70 per cent of our emissions are generated by our products, so the best way to make a change for tomorrow was to think about starting to design them better.”
To this end, Maped Helix has reviewed its operations in recent years and introduced a new eco-design concept, which took environmental impact into account at every stage in a product’s life cycle.
Richmond explained: “We seek to reduce the impact of our choices in terms of materials used and production processes, including anticipating the end of the product’s life.
“This way, we continuously learn about new processes, we draft guidelines, and we always choose the solution that will have the least impact.”
This has seen Maped Helix transition to using FSCTM-certified materials in its products which originate from responsibly managed sources. These materials are now used in the manufacturing processes for its coloured and graphite pencils, and rubber erasers.
Further to this, the firm has explored how it could make its packaging even more environmentally friendly and sustainable too, offloading the excess and making everything recyclable.
“Recyclable packaging makes for a more sustainable world,” Richmond said.
“We’ve set a target of eliminating all PVC packaging in our supply chain by 2022 and switching to paper, which is in fact lighter for products such as our erasers.
“We’ve done away with the PVC shell on our erasers and cardboard blister packs to cite one example and replaced it with 100 per cent recyclable paper packaging. This move alone will see us save 6.3 tonnes of packaging every year!”
The company’s green drive has also brought reviews of its energy and water consumption at some of its operating sites abroad. In 2020 for example, Maped Helix first took the decision to power its factory in France entirely with green electricity, mainly generated through hydroelectric power. This has seen its carbon output from electric energy usage divided by ten.
Richmond added: “As well as switching to renewable energy at our French site, we also made the choice to switch to biogas powered shuttles for inter-site transportation, which has seen us cut down on 75 per cent of on-site CO2 emissions.
“A year earlier at our site in Germany, we modernised all of our industrial operating equipment which has reduced on-site energy consumption there by a staggering 25 per cent.”
In 2020, Maped Helix’s operating base in China addressed excessive water consumption and wastage by installing a recycling system for cleaning water, which has brought about a zero-waste closed circuit with no dirty water being discharged from the system.”
Richmond said: “Recycling goes beyond just our packaging. If we can re-use our water and operate on renewable, green energies as much as we can, then we’ll cut down on our carbon footprint.
“We keep being told by the experts that we only have one planet, so we all need to do our part in taking care of it.”
Photo provided by Maped Helix
