What are your concerns about net zero?
With so much information out there, it can feel like there is far too much to take in, especially if you’re trying to run a business too.
In this blog, we want to look at the biggest concerns that we’ve heard from our conversations with other business owners and clients. The topic of net zero can be wide ranging, but we’re sure the same things have crossed your mind at some point in the recent past!
Is it net zero or is it greenwashing?
If you’ve been following us for a while, you know that we like to keep our fingers on the pulse when it comes to what is happening in the discrete manufacturing industry as a whole. One thing that we’ve seen over the last couple of years is the growing concerns around Net Zero and ESG. We understand that. A lot of information has been put out there, and sometimes that feels at odds with what we thought we knew. But we also know that as an industry we need to do something.
According to various sources, including the UN, Net Zero claims are ones that can often be subject to greenwashing. But why is that?
Well, it can be really easy for companies to be deliberately vague about their supply chain.
For example, a company could list their item as being ‘Made in Britain’ which is great, if you’re looking to show publicly that you are lowering your carbon emissions in your supply chain.
But that if the components for that item are sourced from further away, such as China for example?
Whilst the item may be assembled in Britain, it’s not fully made here. Something as simple as the one word, made, can amount to greenwashing, depending on how you look at it.
This is often why making claims about your net zero status can feel hard.
It feels too big for me to take on
This is a common one. It feels like there are so many moving parts to net zero, particularly if you’re a smaller discrete manufacturer. It’s likely that you’ll be spending all your time meeting the demands of Tier one/Prime businesses or just doing what makes you great. Do you even have time to start thinking about this?
In one of our earlier blogs we took a quick whistle stop tour of what you could look at, all of which are relatively small actions that could lead to bigger wins. And whilst we appreciate that these actions may feel incredibly small, we all need to start somewhere, and these foundational steps can be incredibly important.
What can I do right now?
There is definitely something that you can do right now. Again, this is something that we’ve spoken about before, and it seems really simple, right? But actually there is a lot you can do with the data that you already have.
For example, if one of the things you’ve noticed is that you’re generating a lot of scrap or waste in a certain part of a production process, how can you manage that?
Is this something that could be overcome by changing your processes, or does it mean that you need to upgrade a piece of equipment or software?
Oftentimes, the things that we don’t want to change are the ones that are firmly in the ‘too hard to do’ box, and net zero activities sometimes feel no different to that.
But what if you looked at it a different way?
Most of the activities which you can do as part of your net zero journey are also actually really good for your business too! Take the example above, if you’re able to get more product from the materials you purchase, then ultimately you should be able to make more profit, because you are wasting less.
Of course, this is an incredibly simplistic view, but a lot of the time, most of the things that you can do, are also beneficial for your business.
We hope that this blog has made you look differently at what you can do, but you’d like to look more at how you can optimise SyteLine or Cloudsuite Industrial as part of your journey to net zero, then why not get in touch?
