Environmental & Sustainability Business Update 2023

We would like to update you on our sustainability plans for 2023. The sustainability agenda is growing fast within our sector and we are committed to taking a leading role in driving the insulation and construction industry to be  sustainable.

YBS Insulation have a long-term commitment to sustainability and responsibility as a manufacturer and supplier of insulation products, employer and key member of our local community. We strive to apply best practice sustainability principles by ensuring environmental, social and economic parameters are considered in an integrated way throughout the operation of our business.

As a market leader of high-quality reflective insulation, sustainability is at the core of everything we do, whilst we have a strong focus on the thermal performance of our products, our pursuit of sustainability is much greater.

We are dedicated to supplying sustainable high performance insulation solutions for enhanced energy efficiency, we also continually strive for improvements in our supply chain, manufacturing operations and transport network to improve quality and minimise our impact on the environment.

Some of the improvements we have made to our business over the last few years include:

Recycled Content

We have a number of products which are manufactured using recycled raw materials, integrating recycled content into products like SuperQuilt, means it now contains up to 83% and BreatherQuilt, contains up to 72%.

Zero Landfill

Our production department operates an efficient manufacturing process with minimal production waste. However, production waste is unavoidable and to counter act this we send all our waste for recycling or refuse derived fuel, with zero waste going to land fill.

Sustainable Vehicles

Our fleet of company vehicles are now all hybrid, and we use electric forklift trucks in our day to day site operations.

What are we doing next?

Packaging

The UK construction industry is one of the largest consumers of materials and produces more waste than any other sector (https://www.ukgbc.org/resource-use-2/). Packaging is part of that problem.

From the 1st of April 2022 the UK Government introduced a nationwide Plastic Packaging Tax, with a hefty £200 charge per tonne of plastic packaging that contains less than 30% recycled plastic content. In many instances this meant a price increase to consumers across the country.

What this means to you as a customer of YBS Insulation?

YBS Insulation currently uses 100% recycled content plastic bags which exceeds the Plastic Packaging Tax minimum requirements.

However, to YBS this it isn’t just about using recycled plastic… we intend to go further and totally remove the plastic packaging from our products.

So, from the 1st of April 2022 we reduced the amount of plastic bags and plastic tie wraps we use to package our products.

The plastic shrink wrap we use to wrap our pallets, contains a minimum of 30% recycled content and our production team will be focused on keeping the amount of shrink wrap we use down to a minimum.

To protect the products in transit we seal the pallet using a pallet cover manufactured from 100% recycled plastic. To further protect the products, we have upgraded the quality of the pallet covers to ensure the products reach you in the same condition they left our factory.

Carbon Footprint

Calculating the carbon footprint of our company is a significant measure of the impact we have on the environment. It represents an indicator of the consumption of energy, products and services.

Measuring our carbon footprint is essential to identifying which sources produce CO2 emissions, enabling us to put in place measures needed to reduce them.

Adapting our lifestyles and thinking more about our actions can have a big impact on global warming and reducing or limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

I trust you will support YBS Insulation in our drive to reduce our impact to the environment.

If you or your customers have any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact a member of our YBS team, we appreciate your continual business and support throughout 2023.

Yours sincerely,

Daniel McKane
Managing Director

Yorkshire Building Services (Whitwell) Limited

Years Manufacturing Insulation

Metres of insulation manufactured per year