Businesses across Cumbria are making changes to their operations to cut their carbon emissions and play their part in the county’s net zero carbon ambitions.
Three businesses from very different sectors shared their experiences at the Cumbria Local Enterprise Partnership’s AGM in September, and you can watch their presentations online.
Playdale Playgrounds based in Haverthwaite near Ulverston designs, manufactures and installs children’s playgrounds. The firm’s chief executive, Barry Leahey, said the firm creates products for the younger generation and wants to help protect their futures. The firm partnered with Lancaster University, with four students measuring their carbon emissions, and then went on to take part in an energy efficiency and decarbonisation scheme, which helped them to understand their energy use and take action to reduce their emissions.
Adrian Cave from Wigton based Futamura outlined how this international manufacturer of food wrapping has been working to address its carbon footprint and its wider sustainability. Adrian said that over 80 per cent of the firm’s food films are now their Nature Flex brand made from wood pulp, with the ambition to be fully plastic-free by 2025. They’re looking at renewable energy options on site, with targets for energy reduction, along with behaviour change, recycling and reuse.
Carlton Power is developing a green hydrogen project in partnership with Kimberly-Clark, based in Barrow. Eric Adams from Carlton Power said the hydrogen will be created using renewable electricity, and then brought to the Kimberly-Clark site via pipeline. The project is part of Kimberly-Clark’s ambition to be net zero by 2030. Eric also gave a good summary of the UK’s current hydrogen strategy and its potential to enable businesses with high energy use in particular to move away from gas.
You can watch the presentations on the CLEP website.
Here are the start times for the three presentations:
19 mins 43 secs: Barry Leahey from Playdale Playgrounds.
31 mins 40 secs: Adrian Cave from Futamura.
49 mins 40 secs: Eric Adams from Carlton Power.
