Brand-Rex wins Scotland’s VIBES Environmental Management Award
‘The greenest large company in Scotland” might be a fitting description for Brand-Rex the international data network infrastructure and cabling company following its winning of the VIBES (vision in business for the environment of Scotland) Management Awards on 29th November 2011.
Announcing the award, Jim Campbell, Projects and Commercial Director for FMC Technologies, last year’s winner said: “The winner of the VIBES Management Award in the large business category, Brand-Rex (http://turt.co/brx0453x), was selected by the final judging panel due to their entire life-cycle approach to reducing their business impacts; from their raw materials through to the final product. This holistic approach has provided benefits not only to the business, but also to their customers and the wider global community.”
VIBES is a partnership between Environmental Protection UK the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, the Scottish Government and Zero Waste Scotland. Awarded annually, the VIBES Management Award is the most prestigious, recognising businesses that take significant steps to improve or reduce their environmental impact and whose management systems deliver continuous improvement in environmental performance.
Barely over the dividing line from medium size business to large business, Brand-Rex was up against formidable competition from major companies like Amey construction, Chivas Regal, Shell, Robert Wiseman Dairies and Edinburgh Airport.
Receiving the VIBES Management Award, Brand-Rex CEO, Paul Lines said; “This is an honour and fantastic recognition for my team’s dedication, globally, to reducing our carbon footprint. They have made it a way of life at Brand-Rex and their efforts took us to become the first company to achieve carbon neutral status – on a global scale – to the new PAS2060 standard.”
Lines continued, “I would like to make a call to all business CEOs that they too should aggressively take up carbon reduction because, contrary to popular belief, if it’s properly done it doesn’t cost money, it actually adds to the bottom line at the same time as protecting the planet for our grand-children.”
The judges, who spent time grilling the management at the Brand-Rex headquarters were particularly impressed with the company’s vision and innovation including the replacement of conventional ‘always-on’ factory lighting with daylight and intelligent top-up low energy electric light; replacing the factory’s fuel-oil by natural gas (saving £78,000 per quarter in the process); and by the Brand-Rex social responsibility in choosing offset programmes in the countries most impacted by the company’s raw materials sourcing.
For example, a land-fill methane flaring project in Chile – where the copper for their cables is mined and a hydro-dam project in Turkey where the copper is purified.
Over the preceding year, Brand-Rex increased production by 29 million metres of cable but still turned-in an overall carbon footprint reduction of 141 tonnes. An equivalent saving of 1330 tonnes compared to pre-improvement figures.
ABOUT BRAND-REX
Brand-Rex Ltd is a global operation, designing, developing and manufacturing the most sophisticated, high performance copper and fibre cabling systems for communications and extreme environment applications. Headquartered in Scotland, the company is committed to being a trusted market leading provider of best-in-class communication infrastructure solutions that are truly ‘future proof’. For more information visit www.brand-rex.com/environment
