VIBES Award: Finalist for Best of VIBES

Highlights

  • Emtelle’s PLANET sustainability plan sets out the organisation’s goals in resource and energy efficiency, waste reduction and people development.
  • This has seen the company reduce its carbon footprint per product by 39% since 2012
  • At least 95% of the company’s packaging is recycled or from a sustainable resource
Watch the winners' story

Based in Hawick & Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, it employs around 250 people in the UK, and has supplied their fibre and ducted solutions into many sectors including Rail, Fibre Optic Broadband /  Fibre to the home (Rural and Urban), Highways, Power Utilities and International Communications providers.

The company, which was founded in 1982, is a leading global manufacturer of blownfibre, cabling and ducted solutions for a range of sectors including telecommunications and power.

Emtelle’s projects include high rise buildings in Dubai, ports in the USA, the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, the Olympic stadium in London, and the Kuala Lumpur monorail in Malaysia.

Achieving and going beyond environmental compliance is core to the company, which has a 10-year sustainability plan called PLANET (standing for ‘Plan Emtelle Tomorrow’).

 

VIBES credentials

Emtelle’s connections to VIBES go back to 2004 when it won a regional award as a medium sized company. Since then, the business has entered around every five years, to gauge itself against Scotland’s best preforming companies. Emtelle went on to win further VIBES awards for environmental management in 2007 and 2015.

Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Manager John Bathgate says:

Sustainability is now truly embedded into our ethos and in no small part due to the ongoing push of VIBES as an attainment standard.

“The awards we’ve won are a real reflection of the commitment from our staff and their attitude towards reducing our environmental impact. We continue to enter these awards as they provide stiff competition and to win one means that our performance is at the benchmark level in Scotland.

“Personally, VIBES has also been part of the catalyst for me to push for sustainability beyond work, as an ambassador, hosting launch meetings and becoming a board member of Borders Forest Trust and the Scottish Sustainable Development Forum and a regional board member of SEPA.

 

Environmental and business benefits

  • Emtelle’s PLANET sustainability plan sets out the organisation’s goals in resource and energy efficiency, waste reduction and people development.
  • This has seen the company reduce its carbon footprint per product by 39% since 2012
  • Other sustainability milestones have included reducing waste per product by 3% and increasing recycling rates by 10%
  • The company has invested in greener travel with 3 electric cars and 4 electric charge points
  • Ink and solvent use have been reduced by 45%
  • Reducing business travel has also helped to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34 tonnes CO2
  • At least 95% of the company’s packaging is recycled or from a sustainable resource
  • Emtelle has achieved both ISO14001 environmental and ISO50001 energy management certification.

 

Wider benefits

  • Emtelle to ensure no plastics enter the water system, Emtelle is a member of Operation Clean Sweep, an international program designed to keep plastic resin, pellets, flakes or powder out of the marine environment.
  • The company regularly sponsors a student as part of the Bright Green Business environmental placement programme scheme; all have gone on to be finalists or winner
  • Young people who planted 650 trees around Emtelle’s Jedburgh site have grown up and worked for the company.
  • The company has encouraged its supply chain to improve, with one supplier becoming the first VIBES Circular Economy award winner.
  • Emtelle’s Health, Safety and Environmental (HSE) Manager John Bathgate has secured feasibility funding for a low carbon visitor centre / tourist attraction, on the scale of the Eden Project to educate and inspire people to adapt to a low carbon future.

 

Website: www.emtelle.com