1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186 
From Iceland to
Page 60
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
greenian
Innovate Logistics is overhauling its entire supply chain in order to meet the commercial and environmental
demands of the future.
According to Innovate Logistics transport companies will soon have no choice but to completely negate their impact upon the environment In light of this Innovate has committed itself to one of the harshest and furthest reaching campaigns to achieve carbon negativity that the industry has seen.
Stephen Dargavel,joint MD of Innovate Holdings and Innovate Logistics, says:"Environmental management is commercially essential. The primary buyers of transport are taking a very aggressive stance and pushing themselves hard in this direction.They will all expect their supply chains to rise to the challenge."
Innovate recently launched its Innovate Office, a 4,200m2site at Thorpe Park, Leeds, which it claims is the greenest building in the country. Dargavel says: "We want to do with transport and distribution what we have demonstrated is possible with the Green Office a Thorpe Park.We want to do everything we can to ensure that within five years the business will achieve a carbon-negative status."
Parent company Eimskip hails from Iceland, one of the countries most committed to ensuring carbon neutrality, and Innovate has drawn its inspiration and many practical techniques from this source to achieve a building complex with the highest energy efficiency rating for its type in the UK.
Iceland's success in carbon control is based on using its natural resources to develop alternative power. Hydropower and geothermal power produce 99% of the country's electricity and 70% of its heating. Innovate has teamed up with Leeds University and the City Council to research sustainable power sources, and to audit its own steps towards carbon negativity. Dargavel expects significant savings:"Everything we have done so far has saved us money in the long term.When you have exhausted all energy efficiencies there will come a cost—hut we haven't reached that point yet."
He says a debate is needed on how much of the cost of environmentally renovated supply chains should be picked up by the consumer and transport customer. But he also anticipates increasing pressure on prices across the board. "In superrnarkets,the consumer goods line will produce less revenue so we will see pressure to maintain margins on groceries."
How much will it all cost? "We simply don't know yet," says Dargavel.Whatever the price, it's clear he thinks inaction would be much more expensive: "We are pre-empting what will come... and it will come."
What Innovate Will do next
+Auditing footprint of entire asset base — shipping, road transport, rail, container ports, offices and temperature-controlled stores. + Reducing the build footprint in terms of buildings and processes.
+ Fleet — already very new— will meet higher standards. Large part already run on gas; will experiment with bid-ads.
+ Offsetting scheme in Durban, South Africa, to compensate for the carbon footprint which cannot be erased. Carbon negativity is achieved by minimising energy usage, then offsetting the rest.
The programme will involve 15,000 Innovate employees and 250 sites and the goal is carbon negativity within five years. Dargavel says this is not as ambitious as it sounds, given that the company is already in the vanguard of environmental protection: "We already recycle all our rooftop rain, and we use inert brine instead of ammonia in our refrigerant systems. We have been doing this for a long time and the Thorpe Park office is a fantastic exemplar building."
The building
Innovate Office Leeds used a number of construction options very different to traditional construction methods. Unusually for most office buildings of this size, the building is almost entirely pre-cast concrete.
The concrete — made from recycled aggregate and pulverised fuel ash —uses significantly less resource and energy than traditional steelframed structures,and allows the use of other innovative processes,such as Termodeck, passive cooling, rooftop landscaping and plantings, vacuum drainage and combined heat and power units, designed to make the building more energy efficient.