Spotlight on Linlithgow
Our campus in Linlithgow, Scotland, is a model for Sun-owned facilities worldwide. The facility has been making environmental improvements for a number of years. A combination of committed, eco-aware employees, regulations, and cost-reduction incentives has driven the Linlithgow environmental program from the start and continues to do so today.
Linlithgow's eco responsibility activities have focused on electricity, natural gas and water use, and waste management. The facility first pursued ISO 14001 certification in 2006 to help guide implementation of a formal set of environmental objectives. The initiatives put in place are beginning to show results.
Building management control systems have been installed around the Linlithgow campus. These include temperature and lighting controls. We continue to adjust the lighting controls to reduce lighting as much as possible, especially in areas of the campus that are largely unoccupied, such as storage units. Light fixtures have also been fitted with energy-efficient bulbs.
In fiscal 2006, the Linlithgow facility reduced natural gas consumption by 23%, saving 261 metric tons of CO2. Additionally, water conservation efforts have saved more than 900,000 gallons of water.
Since October 2005, the Linlithgow facility has used 100% renewable energy — wind and hydro power — for its electricity. The majority of the electricity at Linlithgow is dependent on factory output: when production increases, so does electricity consumption. During fiscal 2007, increased production led to a 4.7% rise in electricity consumption at the plant. We recognize that we face an uphill battle as we try to reduce resource consumption as production increases.
We continually strive to reduce what we send to landfill and increase what we recycle, and we have had great success. In fiscal 2007, 92% of all waste from the Linlithgow facility was recycled, leaving only 8% that was sent to a landfill. (Note: Numbers are through May 2007.)
We continue to expand the already extensive recycling facilities on site. But we recognize that our recycling efforts are only effective if our employees participate. We communicate with our employees in various ways to encourage them to recycle and to save energy — we hang posters around the campus and circulate bulletins with eco responsibility tips from organizations such as The Carbon Trust. We measure the waste streams that still go to landfill, such as kitchen waste, so that we can find ways to reduce the amount produced.
Continual Improvement
In fiscal 2008, the Linlithgow team would like to set concrete energy-reduction targets. The first step in that process will be designing a system to disaggregate manufacturing energy usage from nonmanufacturing energy usage.
Longer term, we'll work to reduce the energy required to build, test, and prove each system produced at the factory. Our plan is to map out the carbon footprint for each product line and determine if there are any improvements in the production process that can lead to reduced electricity consumption.
We've already begun to introduce further conservation initiatives that will extend into fiscal 2008. For example, we've isolated some low-level lighting in the manufacturing process, a change that is expected to save 100,000 kWh of electricity. We're also looking at other changes to further reduce our consumption of water, gas, and electricity.
