A SCOTTISH sawmill and timber merchants is on target to save over £68,000 on energy bills this year. The saving has been triggered by replacing over 2100 traditional lamps with low-energy LED equivalents.
Thornbridge Sawmills and Rembrand Timber, now combined as National Timber Group Scotland, employs over 350 staff across Scotland. Its head office and sawmill, located in Grangemouth, serve a retail network of 32 branches throughout Scotland.
The retro-fit LED installation across the company is also on target to save 174 tons of carbon annually. That’s equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from a family car driven for 4 million miles; or the amount of carbon sequestered from over 25,000 seedlings for 10 years.
The 3-month long logistical project to deliver a complete retro-fit LED installation was coordinated by green energy solutions company, Airis Energy Solutions.
John Douglas, a director of National Timber Group Scotland, said: “The change to LED has been a switch we’ve been considering for a few years. It was just a matter of finding the right partner with the expertise to deliver it across all our sites.
“Airis Energy Solutions not only made it happen, but they upgraded 29 of our sites simultaneously with upfront costs kept to a bare minimum. The results speak for themselves.”
Thornbridge Sawmills and Rembrand Timber savings follow on from the launch of a new global sustainability initiative announced in August. The ‘Wood CO2ts less’ campaign aims to increase awareness of timber’s environmental credentials and highlight how using wood from sustainably managed forests is one of the simplest ways to help reduce carbon emissions.
Airis Energy Solutions managing director Damien Fryer added: “These are important times for sustainability in the timber industry. It’s great to see forward thinking companies like Thornbridge and Rembrand are already taking the initiative to reduce their carbon footprint. And we are happy to help.
“Thornbridge and Rembrand enjoyed significant commercial benefits too. The savings generated from the LED upgrade were more than enough to cover project costs. We put further commercial savings back into the business too. Better still, Airis also fully maintains the full lighting system across all 24 sites. So, Rembrand and Thornbridge do not have any lighting maintenance cost for the next five years of our contract.”
