Award for Sustainable Business
The Johnson Matthey Award for Sustainable Business recognises individuals, teams, sites or businesses that have made an outstanding contribution to sustainability in the year.
The judges were looking for evidence of:
- The contribution the entry makes towards achieving the Sustainability 2017 Vision.
- The social / environmental / ethical / financial impact of the entry.
- Employee engagement and involvement.
With an extremely high standard of entries in this category, two awards have been made:
Sustainable Business is Good Business
Johnson Matthey’s Noble Metals business has launched a new product to remove harmful nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from nitric acid plants. Together with more sustainable ways of working, the new product opportunity – leading to a significant new revenue stream – has made Noble Metals joint winner of the 2008/09 Award for Sustainable Business.
With the N2O destruction catalyst, the Noble Metals business has launched a product capable of having a direct beneficial effect on climate change emissions. It had long been known that nitrous oxide emissions from nitric acid plants were substantial, but until the Kyoto Protocol was ratified globally, producers were not motivated to abate the emissions.
Johnson Matthey was already working on abatement technology, latterly in partnership with Yara International. This partnership has ensured a strong market lead in the supply of secondary abatement catalyst technology to attack these global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2008/09 the product effectively removed 3.6 million tonnes equivalent of CO2 and with other projects in the offing this is expected to double in the coming year. This is a profitable opportunity for Noble Metals that is likely to produce a significant boost to the profit of the business over the next three to four years.
On the operational side, Noble Metals has made dramatic improvements in the sustainability of its operations, already meeting five of the ten targets the business has set itself within the Johnson Matthey drive to ‘halve demand for key resources and remove waste’ by 2017. Use of natural gas is down by over 40% and electricity by 13%. Water use is down by 50%, with consumption dropping from 140 to 70 cubic metres a day. The water target has now been met but further reductions are being sought. The many aspects of waste are being tackled effectively and no ceramic or metal waste went to landfill in 2008/09.
Efforts have been going on over a number of years to reduce the proportion of new metal used in Noble Metals’ products. In 2005, new metal made up 60% of every kilogramme of product containing platinum group metals that the business sold. By 2008 this had been reduced to 40%, thanks to a combination of new methods, machinery and staff skills. Savings from more sustainable operations are estimated at around £400,000 a year.
Sceptics argue that working sustainably is more expensive and that sustainability adds a premium to products and operations. Confounding the sceptics, Noble Metals has pushed its message of ‘profitability with sustainability’ and achieved tangible financial success, as well as winning a Johnson Matthey 2008/09 award.
A Culture of Sustainability Takes off at Alfa Aesar
Through a wide variety of initiatives and employee generated ideas, Johnson Matthey’s Alfa Aesar business at Ward Hill, US, has made sustainability a way of working and a way of life. Its success in embedding sustainability has earned it the 2008/09 Award for Sustainable Business, as joint winner.
It was crucial from the outset to get employees to buy into the programme. At the same time, ‘low hanging fruit’ – the easy wins – was identified, in the belief that success breeds success and fosters employee engagement.
A web based sustainability log was set up for employees to share ideas. No suggestion was too small or too ambitious. Ideas included solar tubes for lighting, paperless fax receipts and an automatic timer for ventilation systems in the warehouses.
The company also brought sustainability into the home lives of employees, helping them both to live and to work sustainably. Over a four month period, employees were offered subsidies to make their homes more energy efficient and gained partial reimbursement for environmentally friendly home improvements. Eligible products and services included home insulation, solar water heating systems and low flow shower heads. Contact points and web links for sustainable living were also supplied.
Back at Alfa Aesar itself, a raft of activities was underway to save energy and reduce waste. Motion detector taps and urinals have been installed in washrooms to reduce water usage. Recycling initiatives have been introduced or improved, with the recycling of paper, cardboard, toner cartridges, tin, plastics, glass and aluminium foil all in place. The paper recycling scheme benefits a local charity, and employees are invited to deposit newspapers and junk mail from home in the containers.
Sustainable kitchenware – plates, mugs and cutlery – has been introduced to minimise kitchen waste going to landfill. Sustainable shopping bags, made up of 80% recycled plastic bottles, have been produced for distribution to Alfa Aesar employees and Johnson Matthey’s employees around the world.
Vibrant sustainable communities are an important part of sustainability and Alfa Aesar staff are active members of the community. Its Employee and Community Engagement Sustainability Team, for example, coordinates staff donations to local families at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Good communications, including a Sustainability Bulletin, have backed up the sustainability work. By the end of 2008 there were 32 new efforts in place, together with ongoing initiatives. A culture of sustainability has taken off, making the award winning business a great example for others to follow.
