Since 2014 Ashby has been offsetting it's energy consumption with solar generation. Approximately 30% of our daily energy use is now returned to the grid

In recent years we have been moving away from the use of polystyrene to package our goods. Polystyrene is a very lightweight and effective packaging material, but it's negative environmental impact is undeniable: the stuff just doesn't go away. In 2021 we began investing in new packaging equipment and materials in an effort to move on from polystyrene. We're currently in the planning stages for further upgrades to our packing line with the intention of increasing the use of recycled and recyclable materials. In conjunction with this we have been reducing our reliance on overnight carriers to transport our goods, opting instead to use smaller courier vans as often as possible. This allows us to use significantly less packaging overall, what internally we refer to as light-wrapping, as well as our goods travelling direct to where they need to be, and not via disparate hubs and circular lorry routes.

Aluminium is our primary and preferred material of choice for sign manufacture. In pure environmental terms: it's lightweight, durable, and near infinitely recyclable. So while it has a high energy cost from a primary production perspective (Refining and Smelting), it requires a mere 5% of that energy to recycle. And those energy savings remain intact, as aluminium is unchanged by the recycling process - no degradation to the metal, no need for additional chemical processes - no matter how many times it goes through the process. What you get out, is what you put in.We do, of course, offer composite aluminium sheet as a substrate for our signage and we have chosen suppliers who have a proven track record on both recycling and the use of recycled materials in it's production - what is often referred to as a 'closed loop' manufacturing process.

Reducing energy consumption is something we're all very used to hearing about in the domestic realm, but many of those very same steps can, and should, be applied to a business. So that is precisely what we have done.Lighting is a great example. Illuminating 32,000 Sq. feet of factory floor, plus our office, is more energy intensive than it should be. Having moved, as many of us have done at home, to low power LED lighting, we went a step further: all areas of our factory with 'low footfall' - storage racks for example - are now outfitted with motion sensors to control their lighting. It is a small step, but they all add up.One of the smaller measures, again inspired from domestic suggestions, is the use of single mug kettles, because we're all guilty of occasionally overfilling a regular kettle just for a morning cup of tea.Something that is commonly overlooked is IT infrastructure. Cloud storage and computing solutions are everywhere, built into most devices and programmes we all interact with daily, and heavily marketed for. The unfortunate reality is that cloud storage represents an energy use increase over local storage. Our solution is to maintain a local file storage system for things being worked on in the short to medium term and to store completed or outdated projects in 'cold storage' - an incredibly hi-tech solution of placing a hard drive in a safe! In the interests of transparency we will own up to using cloud services, but it's use is limited to sensitive information and our ERP. With the best will in the world we cannot compete with the increased security cloud services offer; we have fended off hackers before and that's not a position we want to be in again!Reducing our energy consumption is something we take seriously and it's a subject we regularly review to ensure we are taking effective action.

Sustainability

As a manufacturing firm, high energy use is unavoidable. But that doesn't mean we can't do our bit!

What we have done and why

Solar Energy

Since 2014 Ashby has been offsetting it's energy consumption with solar generation. Approximately 30% of our daily energy use is now returned to the grid

Collaborative Projects

Museum Mobile Timeline Stands

Sign Select (Waterford)

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