W.Howard manufactures and distributes one of Europe’s largest range of MDF panels. Many of their customers and prospective customers have aggressive sustainability targets that require W. Howard to demonstrate their commitment to environmental sustainability. W. Howard decided that their first step would be to calculate their carbon footprint.

They came to Innovative Energy Consultants for help creating a repeatable, easily understood carbon footprinting tool that could be used to clearly communicate with customers and build trust. 

Creating a Tailored Solution  

From our discovery conversations, we determined that W. Howard’s customers and prospects’ priority was to be able to see an accurate estimate of operating emissions. In W. Howard’s case, its operating emissions are its Scope 1 and 2 emissions from the consumption of fuel and electricity combined with those from fugitive refrigerants. 

We worked with the Finance team to identify ways to measure energy and fuel consumption from billing and metering information across W. Howard’s six sites and delivery fleet. By working with the Operations team, we were also able to identify the equipment refrigerants are used in, and thereby estimate fugitive emissions using equipment specifications and standard industry factors. 

We then built a tailored model that could use the consumption and equipment data as inputs to estimate the resulting emissions in tonnes of CO₂e.¹ 

‍“IEC went the extra mile for us on a number of occasions. The bespoke Carbon Footprint they created for us is clear and easy to engage with.” ~ Graham Williams, COO, W. Howard

Data Driven Recommendations

We used the model to calculate a base line carbon footprint for W. Howard’s whole business. We then created an interactive dashboard that showed emissions by site and by source. Using this dashboard we identified emissions from consumption of electricity, diesel and LPG as the largest sources of emissions. We provided site-specific recommendations to reduce emissions from each of these sources.

The W. Howard team were surprised that such a high proportion of their emissions were the result of using LPG. LPG is mainly used in a single process at a single site and thus was not previously a very visible source of emissions. By working with their supplier, they were able to switch to BioLPG - LPG made from renewable materials such as plant matter. This one action has the potential to reduce their total operating emissions by over 15%.        

Communicating Clearly with Customers

The baseline carbon footprint empowered W. Howard’s commercial team to engage on the topic of sustainability: retaining old customers and winning new business. By taking the action to switch to BioLPG, they were able to demonstrate their commitment to reducing their carbon footprint, helping to build trust and customer loyalty. 

How IEC Can Help Your Business

If your organisation needs help creating a process to track carbon emissions or putting together a plan to reduce emissions, we can help! To find out more, book a complimentary 15 min discovery call today. 

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¹ Tonnes of CO₂e or tonnes of Carbon Dioxide equivalent is a measure by which the total global warming potential of greenhouse gasses is expressed, by converting amounts of other gases to the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide with the same global warming potential.