My name is Oliver Conger and I am the Managing Director of Rototherm and one of the early members of Betterworld, which was created to share best practice on environmental projects.
As a business we Adopted a Policy to Prevent Global warming and we have followed other Betterworld members by investing in a solar installation. We enjoyed the benefit of this so much that we made a second investment in more solar panels.
We also investigated the idea of Betterworld Water, which is an under the sink water chiller and filtering device, and would like to share some details of an energy management project, which could be useful for many SMEs.
British Rototherm Group based in Port Talbot in Wales, design and manufacture precision instrumentation solution that enable its customers to accurately and reliably improve their processes for (1) flow, (2) level (3) temperature and (4) pressure. The company is passionate about continuous improvement and sustainability and has been chosen by the Welsh Government to feature in an upcoming case study promoting environmental best practice.
The idea of Betterworld Water is to prevent single use plastic, or the purchase of large bottles of chilled water that were costing us £29.00 a month each or £696 per annum. We also considered reducing the carbon footprint involved in the replacement of the water bottles and the use of disposable plastic cups.
The two, under the sink water chillers, cost £1,100, but we have avoided the rental cost of £696 per annum, so we get a return on investment of 1.4 years (17 months) and improved our carbon footprint. We no longer use disposable plastic cups and use Betterworld branded glass water bottles in meeting rooms and multi-use plastic bottles in workshops. Several of my colleagues have also commented on how good the chilled and filtered tap water tastes and we got a return on investment well within the stated values of our Policy to Prevent Global warming.
Inspired to do more, Rototherm would also like to share an environmentally friendly best practice tip that could benefit many businesses financially as well as helping to protect the environment.
Digital plug timers and better energy management
Our business got a lot better RPI on a small-scale CAPEX which I believe is of interest to many SMEs as it focused on reducing our out of hours energy consumption.
At the start of the year, our out of hours consumption was approximately 9kWh (6pm to 7am). Through investment in some digital plug timers and reviewing our equipment usage (such as calibration baths where some were only used twice per week but left on 24/7), we have reduced this down by nearly 50% to 5kWh. For example, our hot water taps in the canteens/kitchens were on 24/7 but we only need them active from 7am to 5pm.
The result is £900 saving per month on an investment of probably £500. That is a two-week payback.
We see the opportunity to reduce this further to around 3kWh and are actively working on this now – primarily compressor consumption and inefficient equipment.
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Rototherm are proud members of Betterworld and have learned a lot from the best practice of others. We are delighted to be able to share ideas, large or small, that can help other businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and also get a great return on their investment.
There are of course many non-financial reasons to invest in the environment not least of which are employee retention and business reputation with other stakeholders.
We are therefore delighted that we have been chosen by the Welsh Government as part of an environmental best practice video that they are producing.
Membership of Betterworld set us on our environmental journey and we strongly recommend this completely free of charge resource to anyone who would like to make their contribution to help minimise the impact of global warming.
