APPENDIX 5: VISIT TO UXBRIDGE
26 March 2008
Members of the Sub-Committee taking part in the visit
were: Lord O'Neill of Clackmannan (Chairman), Lord Haskel, Lord
Methuen, Earl of Selborne and Baroness Sharp of Guildford.
In attendance: Professor Stephen Evans (Specialist
Adviser), Miss Sarah Jones (Clerk) and Dr Cathleen Schulte
(Committee Specialist).
Xerox UK
Meeting with Mr Frank Mooney (Customer Service
Director), Mr Robert Clarke (Environmental Executive), Mr Andy
Cosgrove (Environment Health and Safety Manager), Ms Elaine Grange
(Environment Health and Safety Project Co-ordinator) and Ms Carole
Shephard (Legal Adviser)
Presentation by Mr Mooney
Mr Mooney provided an overview of the Xerox
corporation, noting that the company generated $17.2 billion of
revenue and employed around 57,400 people in 2007. Approximately
six per cent of the total revenue was spent on research and development
conducted in five different centres throughout the world, and
Xerox had registered over 10,000 patents in the United States
in the last 20 years. The company utilised lean manufacturing
and six sigma approaches to improve their business processes and
had been promoting their social responsibility credentials for
years. Xerox also claimed to have pioneered the production of
"waste-free" products and designed copiers, printers
and multifunctional systems which could be remanufactured at the
end of their initial lives.
Presentation by Mr Cosgrove
Xerox manufactured office products including printers,
copiers, digital printing presses and colour printers. It also
provided consulting services on how to reduce costs and maximise
productivity by improving printing processes within offices. Mr Cosgrove
reported that sustainability was part of the company's ethos and
Xerox had a long history of tackling environmental issues. Its
four environmental strategic goals were to become climate neutral
(by investing in technologies that would reduce its carbon footprint),
to maintain a sustainable paper cycle (working in partnership
with customers, suppliers and stakeholders), to achieve a zero
persistent bioaccumulative toxic footprint (through elimination
of such materials in the supply chain) and to produce waste-free
products and facilities (by producing waste-free products and
also by promoting waste-free offices amongst their customers).
The company also ran return programmes for consumables such as
printer cartridges.
In 1967 Xerox began recycling materials from their
products and in 1969 the company developed the first machine which
could produce double-sided copies. In 1991 the company launched
its Waste-Free programme, with an aim to encourage "waste-free
products manufactured in waste-free factories to enable waste-free
customer workplaces." In order to achieve this goal, Xerox
pioneered the design and production of machines that could be
remanufactured. Such machines were returned to factories for disassembly
and as many components as possible were used in the manufacture
of new machines.
Xerox had examined traditional printing processes
to assess where improvements could be made. It had developed a
novel way to make toner which reduced overall energy consumption
by 15-22 per cent per pound of toner, led to a lower mass of toner
being used per page and which resulted in less toner waste. For
specific types of printer, the company had developed solid ink
colour technology which eliminated the need for cartridges or
other consumable items and generated around 90 per cent less waste.
The company was continuing to invest in research and one of its
latest innovations was the development of erasable paper, on which
images lasted for just one day, allowing the paper to be used
again and again.
Presentation by Mr Clarke
Mr Clarke outlined Xerox's waste prevention
and management activities. Beginning with product design, the
use of hazardous substances was minimised, often beyond legislative
demands, and attention was given to the efficient use of materials.
Products were designed with a modular architecture so that they
were easy to dismantle, repair or refurbish and so that parts
could be re-used in the same or similar machines. A standard design
platform with a 10 year life-cycle allowed designers to design
for the future.
Once in service, the emphasis was on consumables.
Xerox's Green World Alliance programme attempted to reduce office
waste by operating a returns service for cartridges and toner
containers. Different return models were used for different customers
and countries: some cartridges and toner containers could be returned
via pre-paid postage labels; in the UK, parts and cartridges could
be collected via authorised charity organisations and service
providers; in addition, service engineers were sometimes provided
with an incentive system to encourage them to return certain types
of printer cartridge. In 2006 the Green World Alliance programme
had resulted in 2.7 million cartridges and toner containers being
returned worldwide.
At the end of their lives, smaller machines (which
constituted around 75 per cent of Xerox products) entered the
standard WEEE collection and disposal system, whilst larger machines
(making up around 25 per cent of all Xerox products), were sent
to a Xerox remanufacturing factory. For the larger machines the
aim was to send zero waste to landfill. Remanufacturing factories
implemented a hierarchy that emphasised the re-use of products
as the primary aim, followed by the re-use of parts (possibly
with some processing first), then recycling back into raw material
as the final option. Customer satisfaction was crucial and machines
made with remanufactured parts should not be distinguishable from
brand new ones, so parts had to be cleaned and tested before being
re-assembled into finished units. For each unit that weighed 589
kilograms when it arrived at the factory, 539 kilograms were re-used
and the remainder recycled, achieving a re-use rate of over 90
per cent. In 2007, Xerox Europe claimed to have remanufactured
around 440 tonnes of material and, since 1991, remanufacturing
and recycling together had given life to more than 2.8 million
Xerox copiers, printers and multifunction systems worldwide. Furthermore,
since 1991 the company's returns programme for consumables and
remanufacturing strategy together had diverted nearly £2
billion of waste from landfill.
Discussion focused on the following points:
· The
success of Xerox's activities was partly due to product leasing;
by retaining ownership of the machines, Xerox could trace their
products and organise for their collection and return. In the
case of non-leased machines, the challenge was to encourage customers
to return old machines that were gathering dust in store rooms.
· The
term "remanufactured" could act as a potential barrier
if customers associated it with "reconditioned" and
saw the products as inferior. It was therefore crucial to make
customers aware of the technology used to ensure that remanufactured
parts met the same performance standards as new ones.
· For
larger products it was profitable to arrange for the collection
of machines, to design machines for disassembly and to invest
in the labour for remanufacturing. Remanufactured products could
usually be produced at a slightly lower cost than brand new units.
However, it was only economical to remanufacture products worth
around £30,000 or more (products of lower value would typically
be recycled).
· The
requirements of the RoHS Directive had forced Xerox to operate
separate production lines for European and non-European returned
machines, which added to the complexity and cost of the remanufacturing
process. Legislation needed to be developed on a global level
to ensure that all countries used similar product standards.
· Implementation
of the WEEE Directive was seen to have encouraged recycling rather
than remanufacturing, even though remanufacturing provided greater
environmental and economic gains. Complying with the WEEE Directive
through collective producer responsibility meant that producers
had no direct connection to their products at end-of-life.
· Large-scale
procurers had the opportunity to shift the balance between recycling
and remanufacturing by returning products to suppliers at the
end of their lives. There was potential to introduce legislation
to encourage this for more expensive electrical and electronic
products.
· In its
procurement process, the government of the Netherlands gave bonus
points for remanufactured products. This was contrasted against
UK government procurement policies which demanded that all products
should be new.
Martin-Baker
Presentation by Mr John Martin (Joint Managing
Director)
Mr Martin welcomed the Committee to Martin-Baker,
a company which produced ejection seats and related equipment
to safeguard aviators throughout the escape, survival, location
and recovery phases of ejection. Headed by the twin sons of the
late founder, the company claimed to have saved over 7,230 lives
in 93 Air Forces. The company had a zero waste ethos which it
had not adopted for the sake of advertising, but which was due
to the environmental awareness of staff and the fact that waste
reduction measures led to significant cost savings.
Presentation by Mr Graham Dumbleton (Works
Manager) and Mr Fred Pratley (Safety Officer)
During a "works communication" process
in 1993, the staff of Martin-Baker had questioned the lack of
recycling in the company and the way in which waste was collected
and disposed. The company's past practice had been to mix waste
materials but, during a visit to their waste management company,
staff were surprised to learn that a wide range of the materials
could be recycled and were of potential value. Simple changes
were therefore made in the office environment and different bins
for cardboard, paper, magazines, plastic cups, aluminium cans
and wood were introduced to encourage recycling.
The company's practices were systematically assessed
and more substantial changes were made within the factory to reduce
waste and increase recycling. One of the problems identified was
that machines were cleaned every six to eight weeks, taking four
to twelve hours each, with the old machine coolant being transported
off-site for disposal. This not only created a lot of waste coolant
but also brought a stop to manufacturing for significant periods
of time. The company therefore researched other options and visited
companies in Sweden which used centralised metal-working fluid
recycling systems. These centralised systems remove coolant from
machines, clean and return it to the machines on a continuous
basis and having seen the benefits, Martin-Baker became one of
the first companies in the UK to install this type of system.
As the coolant was now cleaned and maintained on a continuous
basis, it could be utilised for extensive periods, certainly years,
with only minimal disposal off-site. Although installation of
the system had initially been met with mixed reactions from staff,
once some machines had been connected to the system, operators
of other machines had soon demanded to know when they would be
connected too.
The company had also addressed the way in which they
managed swarf waste, the shavings and chippings of metal which
result from metal-working operations. The swarf from different
metals had previously been mixed together, contaminated with coolant
fluid and, as a result, the company received the lowest possible
price for it. Martin-Baker attempted to engage in conversations
with their scrap merchant to discuss how their processes could
be improved but to no avail. They eventually entered into dialogue
with another metal recycling company and after obtaining an understanding
of the recycling process and the quality of materials needed,
Martin-Baker designed a system that would keep all metals separate
and which used gravity to separate the majority of coolant from
the metal swarf. The resulting segregated "dry" waste
metals could thus be recycled back into higher specification metal
with an enhanced value. The standard approach of using centrifuges
to separate the swarf from the coolant was dismissed as being
unnecessarily energy-intensive, when discipline and time could
achieve the same ends.
The company always attempted to find solutions to
environmental problems using such an approach, consulting with
the workforce and engaging with external experts. Using this process
to improve the management of hazardous waste, the company had
managed to reduce the number of tankers needed to dispose of hazardous
waste from 65 to just 13 tankers per year. In 1998 the company
had decided to attempt to obtain ISO 14001 accreditation. Mr Dumbleton
felt that the application process for the standard had forced
the company to examine areas where waste was still being produced
and drove staff to take further action to tackle items such as
batteries, toner, printer cartridges and water.
The Committee were given a tour of the factory and
discussion focused on the following points:
· The
reduction of waste had delivered significant cost savings in material
bills, water bills and landfill costs, as well as profits from
the increased value of scrap.
· Martin-Baker
now engaged with a variety of external business support programmes,
such as NISP and Envirowise, but the company had not heard of
these programmes when it initially implemented its waste reduction
practices. The attention paid to waste reduction was seen as an
extension of the company's philosophy of continuous improvement,
with significant benefits arising from the involvement and empowerment
of a loyal workforce. The company had received 10 Queen's Awards
for Enterprise, including one for Sustainable Development.
· Shortly
after the centralised metal-working fluid recycling system had
been installed, machine operators had become protective of the
coolant supply and exhibited a sense of pride in the system. The
company felt that a sense of ownership amongst staff assisted
the implementation of waste reduction practices.
· The
simple act of talking to external experts—whether recyclers
or coolant experts—was a major help to the formation of
waste reduction initiatives. However, it had not been easy to
find businesses that were willing to co-operate in an open manner,
as most preferred to keep their knowledge to themselves. In the
future the company was looking to engage with and educate its
suppliers about waste reduction. Martin-Baker hoped to improve
waste prevention amongst its suppliers by demanding higher standards
but acknowledged that this would take time as many were small
businesses with no knowledge of waste reduction.
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