The Results Are In! The Drayton Factory Wins Schneider Sustainability Award for its Gas and Electricity Reduction

We know that as trade partners and customers, more companies like yours are aligning with manufacturers that have sustainable supply chains and working practices. When you purchase Drayton products, you can be confident that at every level of their production and distribution, we’re taking climate positive steps not only for better, more efficient business, but we’re investing in a net zero emission supply chain for a more globally sustainable future.

We’re proud to share that the Drayton factory in Plymouth, producing best-sellers like Wiser and TRV4, has won the Schneider award for Winter Energy Efficiency for Best Production Site, following a catalogue of positive changes in on-site technology and working practices that resulted in a 5.9% saving in gas energy and a 9.5% saving in electricity for winter 2022/23 compared to the previous year. A huge congratulations to all Plymouth staff!

Our award-winning Energy Reduction Programme had three key objectives with the aim of reducing our carbon footprint:

• Energy reduction through education and day-to-day practices
• Switch gas use to green electricity usage to reduce CO2 footprint
• Introduction of more efficient equipment and services

Read on to learn more about the steps we took to meet these objectives and save gas and electricity last winter.

1. E-STOP – What is it?

E-STOP stands for Energy – Save and Turn Off Power and is an education tool implemented on-site to remind staff to turn off machinery, lighting and other devices when not in use. Signs have been placed throughout the site as a prompt to help staff remember to support company energy saving efforts during their busy working day.

2. New Energy Monitoring Technology

New sophisticated sensors and display screens monitor the energy usage of our production machinery, alerting staff if energy is being expended whilst the machine is not in active production.

3. Heat Recycling

We told you a while ago about the installation of a new upgraded air compressor which drives much of our production machinery. It features variable output and saved x% (link), now we've installed new ducting to recycle the heat energy it creates into other production areas, allowing other heating equipment to be turned off to save energy.

4. LED Lighting Project

Our project to convert all lighting to LED was completed, meaning all lighting in our production, warehouse and office areas are now powered by efficient and reliable LED technology.

5. Smarter machinery time management

Use of production machinery that relies on the new compressor has been consolidated to certain days of the week, removing the need to have the compressor operating all the time.

What’s next for the Wiser factory?

In time for this winter 2023/24, we plan to install electric water heaters in the washrooms, making use of the 100% renewable electricity our site is powered, letting us turn off gas-fired boilers for 5 months of the year.

A huge congratulations to everyone at Drayton for the success of our Plymouth factory’s sustainability journey so far, another significant step towards our goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions by 2025.

Find out more about our journey to net zero emissions at Wiser About Sustainability.