Sustainability

We are introducing a new major sustainability initiative at EC Electronics, which the team is extremely passionate about! While we operate as a global company (requiring travel and the movement of goods), we know that we can do better to help improve our carbon footprint.

ISO 14001:2015 certified

Our UK business was first certified in 2012, and we are dedicated to maintaining our environmental management system to ensure it meets evolving international industry standards. Implementing this certification helps us to continue to meet environmental laws and regulations, as well as manage the immediate and long-term environmental impacts of our processes.

We recognise that as a global organisation, we need to consistently consider our impact on the planet. The framework of our ISO 14001:2015 certification helps us to identify and mitigate any risks to the planet as a result of our operations.

iso-14001

Our environmental policy

We are committed to protecting the environment through fulfilling our compliance obligations, preventing pollution, managing all waste and ensuring that any and all growth is carried out sustainably. Our environmental policy is under continuous review to ensure the efforts made to improve our operations are in line with current and changing regulations.

By liaising with our clients and suppliers, we will continue to identify risks and work closely with them to remove any potential problems and resolve any concerns.

We are just getting started…

To kickstart our focus on sustainability, we are taking small steps that will contribute to big improvements for our carbon footprint. As we grow and develop our initiatives, we will keep adding them to this page.

Our Quality Manager, Kevin Osgood, has also collated some important comments about general environmental concerns as well as those specifically related to EC Electronics. Be sure to have a look at these and let us know your thoughts!

Our strategic objectives

  • Roll out ISO 14001 standards across all group businesses and locations, ultimately achieving certification for all group businesses and sites.
  • Recognise that we are an international business trading globally with our customers and supply chain.

  • Mitigate wherever possible the need for the movement of goods and people – whilst maintaining excellent customer service and efficient supply chain management.

  • Make a positive contribution to society and minimise potential adverse environmental impacts.

  • Build partnerships with our customers and suppliers that focus on jointly improving our environmental impact.

  • Increase employee awareness of our environmental impact and encourage involvement from everyone to initiate and deliver improvement projects.

Our initiatives

Packaging initiative

19th August 2020

What will we be doing?

One of our key sustainability initiatives is to reduce packaging. We have identified three specific elements of our business where we use packaging and will be addressing each one individually. Each of our manufacturing sites will have a trained packaging “champion”. This person will ensure all products are packaged to a precise specification which uses the minimum packaging materials whilst still ensuring the safety of the products in transit.

We love WEEE

1st July 2020

What will we be doing?

Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE) provides regulations for the recycling of all electronic waste. As a business, we are legally bound to ensure that we comply with WEEE. However, this is not the case for individuals. So, we are encouraging all of our staff to utilise the free WEEE recycling facilities available at our head office to recycle any electronic items they no longer need – a quick and easy way to reduce excess landfill waste.

Switching off

1st July 2020

What will we be doing?

We will be ensuring that all of our computer monitors are turned off at night (not left on standby with the LED light on!). This may seem small, but our Quality Manager Kevin has recently calculated we would use 31 kg of CO2 per year if all of our team members left two monitors on standby overnight! So, the simple solution of turning them off at night will help us to reduce our CO2 output by minimising our contribution to electricity generation.

Love earth team

1st July 2020

What will we be doing?

We are making sure that everyone at EC Electronics can have a part in helping us to improve and grow our sustainability initiative. So, we have created a working group (which everyone is welcome to join!) to discuss environmental concerns, as well as a dedicated email address that all employees can send ideas, thoughts and concerns to. By doing this, we will get a more in-depth view of the detailed changes we can make.

Plastic isn't fantastic

26th November 2020

What will we be doing?

In the UK, over 5 million tonnes of plastic are consumed every year, with only a quarter being recycled! To help reduce the amount of plastic waste from our employees, we have gifted our head office team with new water bottles for them to reuse! This is a small step to a company-wide reduction in the use of plastic, but hopefully, one that will make a difference and help our colleagues monitor and consider their plastic usage.

If you have any questions about our sustainability initiative or would like to learn more about how we are working towards becoming a sustainable international EMS provider, get in contact with one of our friendly team today!