ENVIRONMENT
Many companies want to improve and develop their environmental management systems; this is both good business practice and a matter of corporate social responsibility. Some strive to achieve ISO 14001 to ensure their compliance with environmental standards. However the ISO standard is not the only route to good environmental behaviour. Companies can develop their own systems designed to suit their particular needs and often set even higher standards as a result.
Redland is one such company. We take our environmental responsibilities very seriously. We do not see them as a legal burden but as an opportunity to differentiate ourselves in a competitive market and to help shape and improve the quality of life of local communities near our plants and the country as a whole.
Efficient production processes
All Redland products are designed for minimum impact on the environment. For instance the drying and curing of concrete tiles is achieved without significant heat input. The concrete gives off heat as it sets which is captured in well-insulated curing chambers. A percentage of the cement content is replaced with ground blast furnace slag, a waste product from the steel industry that would otherwise go to landfill
The company’s clay tile manufacturing process uses a modern hydro-cased kiln, which efficiently captures the heat input and uses it for both drying and firing the clay.
Cambrian Slates are manufactured using waste slate from Welsh quarries as the main component of the product. Using an exothermic reaction when mixed with resin, no further energy is required to form a durable, single-lapped and highly weathertight, natural-looking product.
Every year we benchmark all our UK factories against our 136 roofing factories from around the world, to help improve energy efficiencies and learn from sharing best practice. Our UK factories currently rank among the best in the world and continue to minimise their environmental impact against a defined annual programme of production improvements.
Minimising transport impact
We believe that a full range of tile products should be manufactured as locally as possible to centres of demand. Our 8 plants and 4 depots in the UK dramatically reduce the amount of transportation of products around the country, thereby reducing congestion and pollution.
Sourcing responsibly
Great care is taken to ensure that the supply chain for all our plants operates within an audited environmental management system framework. To this end currently over 80% of the raw materials used in the production of our concrete, clay and Cambrian products are supplied by companies that operate to ISO 14001 standard.
Reducing waste
Tiles
Broken tiles and waste mortar are ground and recycled in the aggregate to minimize waste solids being removed from the site and adding to landfill problems.
Water
Waste water from production processes is recycled and used in the manufacturing of other products. We have also installed water treatment plants and/or settlement lagoons at all our factories to ensure that any water runoff is correctly treated before it enters the drainage system.
Pallets
We have introduced a pallet return system where our customers are encouraged to return the wooden pallets that our products were packaged on. These pallets are then reused for future product packaging.
Reducing packaging
We annually review our packaging to lower the tonnage of packaging and energy used to wrap our products. For some products (Redland 49 Tile and Norfolk Pantiles) we are able to safely deliver them without any packaging, just strap banding and a pallet. Besides reducing materials and the energy used for packaging, it reduces the amount of waste at the building site.
The Green Guide to Specification
BRE Green Guides are published and copyrighted by the BRE. These Guides enable the reader to assess the environmental performance of various roof constructions. The current Green Guide to Specification classifies each specification into A+ to E ratings based upon life cycle analyses (LCAs). To calculate these ratings the BRE use data supplied by trade associations, which in turn is supplied by their manufacturer members. An A+ rating corresponds to the lowest environmental impact, whereas an E rating represents the highest impact in the BRE scale.
All Redland concrete and clay tiles and Cambrian Slates are A+ rated.
Redland concrete interlocking tiles
As members of the Concrete Tile Manufacturers Association, data supplied for our UK concrete roof tile plants enabled the current BRE Green Guide to Specification to award an A+ rating (lowest environmental impact) for standard roof constructions such as cold and warm pitched roofs when covered with concrete interlocking tiles. These environmental profiles can be downloaded from www.bre.co.uk
Redland concrete plain tiles
As members of the Concrete Tile Manufacturers Association data supplied for our UK concrete roof tile plants enabled the current BRE Green Guide to Specification to award an A+ rating for standard roof constructions when covered with concrete plain tiles. These environmental profiles can be downloaded from www.bre.co.uk
Redland clay plain tiles
As members of the Clay Roof Tile Council, data supplied for our Rosemary clay roof tile plant at Bedworth in the West Midlands enabled the current BRE Green Guide to Specification to award an A+ rating for standard roof constructions when covered with clay plain tiles. These environmental profiles can be downloaded from www.bre.co.uk
Redland Cambrian Slates
Redland Cambrian Slates manufactured at our Rassau plant in Wales have been certificated by BRE Certification to achieve an A rating for standard roofing constructions including vertical cladding. As a proprietary product the rating is not in the Green Guide to Specification but the BRE Environmental Profiles Scheme Certificate Number ENP 351 can be downloaded by clicking here.
Renewables – towards a carbon neutral future
By 2016 the Government has set the challenging objective that all new homes should be designed to be "carbon neutral" in terms of their operational energy use. This means that homes of the future must produce zero net emissions of carbon dioxide from all energy use in the home including appliances. In practice, this requires the use of zero carbon sources of energy to provide both heat and power.
Harnessing solar energy is one of the most attractive and sustainable means of generating zero, carbon, renewable energy for use in buildings, and the roof is the ideal surface for solar energy collection for heat and electricity generation. One of the most attractive and affordable technologies for helping to realise homes with lower carbon footprints are solar hot water panels which can provide up to 70% of the hot water needs for a home. The Redland range of roof-integrated solar water heating systems combine market leading wind uplift security and weathertightness with superb performance and aesthetics.