At JZ, it is not just our products that are green. We are so committed to reducing our impact on the environment, we have established an energy saving forum to consider initiatives and technology with a view to further reducing our carbon footprint.
Our purpose-built head office and pack-house was designed and built to be as energy efficient as possible. Below are just a few of its key features:
BMS (Business monitoring System) – This computerised data collection and equipment control facility accurately monitors and provides the ability to balance various disciplines throughout the companies daily operations. It can control lighting i.e. switch off or on automatically as daylight intensity varies, control the temperatures in the coolers, monitor electricity and water usage at the site, and provides alarms for critical equipment failure.
Rainwater Harvesting – Annual water costs for the site are in the region of £40,000. Usage is on average 84m3/day (30,500m3/year) currently supplied at 3.2L/second from Yorkshire Water’s main in the highway verge. The past 15 years rainfall records for the North Cave locality have been tabulated and annual/monthly/daily volumes interpolated. Roof areas total some 36,000m2 and roof water drainage at the site is, to a large extent, separate from yard surface water. It is proposed to collect all roof water outlets into a central u/grd tank of sufficient capacity to accommodate lift pumps acting as duty stand-by and duty-assist to deliver the rainfall into above ground storage tanks. From there, it will be filtered and fed into the current factory water feed to the production line bucket fillers only. It is not proposed to be used for domestic purposes. With an average annual rainfall of 600mm it is envisaged that water consumption could be reduced by up to 21,600m3. 60% of consumption.
Heat Recovery – These Buildings have been built to a high specification and standard of construction and insulation. As 60% of the floor area requires cooling the heat generated from the chillers has been recovered, stored and provides under floor heating to all offices and air conditioning units. Recognition of the innovation and energy saving has been by way of awards from; UKTI 2015 for sustainable investment, the RICS Regional Award 2012, the 2012 LABC Regional Award for innovation and the 2012 LABC finalist in the National Award.
Voltage Optimisation – This reduces the site electricity costs by approximately 10%. Electricity that is supplied by the Network Provider can vary at the incoming meter between say 220 & 250amp. The charge equates to the supply amps metered. Motors on site take a maximum of 220amp and voltage optimisation limits the amp take to 220 thereby reducing the cost.
LED – Current site lighting uses annually 741,000 kwh. It is being considered that they be replaced with LED fitments. This would provide annual savings of 500kwh, 270,000 kg of carbon and approximately £41,000 in electricity costs. The ROI is 3.3 years.
Energy Sourcing – we chose an energy provider that only uses electricity from renewable sources including wind turbines, solar projects, hydro schemes, marine renewables (wave & tidal energy) and landfill gas.
Recycling – We aim to recycle a minimum of 97% of all waste that we create. We will publish our monthly recycling figures here so you can see how well we’re doing.
Car Share – There is a traffic impact assessment that highlights the advantages of car sharing and it is a company policy to make employees aware of and encourage them to comply. This was set initially at reducing car journeys by 5% but in practice this has been exceeded as the majority of employees now arrive three to the car.
