Obart goes carbon neutral
17 June 2022
Obart Pumps and sister company Tsurumi UK have accomplished their goal of becoming Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon neutral by 2023.
As far back as 2012 the firms had adopted measures such as installing solar panels on their 20,000sq ft head office building in Maidstone, above, enabling them to generate more energy than the businesses use for their operations.
Additional carbon saving improvements include LED lighting throughout offices, low energy automated lighting in warehouses, use of fully biodegradable starch chips and shredding cardboard for recycling in packaging orders.
Another major factor had been to become WEEE registered, a producer compliance scheme to take back, re-use and treat recycled electrical waste from products.
However, to go further on the route to net zero, the companies sought advice from the consultancies Square Gain, Redshaw Advisors and Plannet Zero.
Pete McMutrie, sales director of Obart Pumps said: “Working closely with these reputable companies, who are leaders in their field, not only helped the business calculate our Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon footprint, but also provide a strategy for our Scope 3 carbon reduction ambitions going forward.”
Assessing the various Scope designations is something that was discussed previously on the blog. As the earlier article said, Scope 1 refers to direct emissions from organisation-owned or controlled resources, such as emissions from on-site manufacturing and company vehicles. Scope 2 covers indirect emissions arising from energy consumed by a business, while Scope 3 covers indirect emissions occurring in a company’s supply chain – from purchased goods and services, to the supplier’s business travel and distribution.
“Part of the brief was to carry out product lifecycle assessments reporting on the carbon saving benefits to businesses using longer lasting Tsurumi Pumps as opposed to lower quality pumps with a shorter ‘in use’ shelf life,” said Pete.
“We now have data that shows how this can help customers save money whilst improving their own carbon reduction strategies.
“Once we had our carbon footprint results, our carbon consultant specialists helped us to find the right projects to invest in. We have subsequently invested in a ‘Gold Standard’ clean water borehole project in Mozambique. Being a water pump company, this seemed a great fit. In fact, it was such a fantastic initiative, we decided to go beyond Scope 1 and Scope 2 carbon neutrality and invest five times this amount to be in a carbon positive position whilst helping fund the amazing work being carried out.”
The Mozambique project provides clean, safe drinking water to over 3,000 people, reducing waterborne diseases and the need to boil water, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 10,000 tonnes of CO2e per year.
Pete added: “We will be looking to keep working with these companies in the future because we still want to continue our journey of continued improvement.”
With a long history of dealing with Tsurumi, Obart Pumps Ltd was purchased by Tsurumi Europe GmbH in January 2020. Obart Pumps is now the UK subsidiary and sole supplier of Tsurumi pumps in the UK.
