Beardow Adams Green Team spearheads environmental initiatives

Beardow Adams, a specialist in hot-melt adhesive technology, has further strengthened its environmental credentials by developing two new eco-friendly products and looking inwardly at its own processes to drive environmental awareness.

The first is an adhesive that washes off PET bottles entirely in an alkaline solution, allowing them to be re-used 10 to 15 times over, the second is an adhesive used for pallet stabilisation; the adhesive replaces expensive layer pads and reduces the need for an excessive amount of plastic pallet wrap.

Beardow Adams’ chief operating officer, Lesley Sheldon, who leads the Green Team, created to help drive environmental awareness across the business, stated that, “sustainability, in terms of both materials and processes, is a key part of our agenda; we’re taking a 360° approach to this issue.”

“Just over 30% of our raw materials are from renewable sources, which is actually quite high – and quite impressive – giving us an excellent platform to build upon,” says Beata Abram Eugenio, head development chemist. “We would like all of our customers to be aware of this and to know that we are already focused on getting to the next level, and how we might achieve 40% or 50% overall. In fact, we have already formulated a number of products that individually hit these percentages. It’s about continuous improvement, which, as a company we are committed to.”

Beyond product-based initiatives, the Green Team has been tasked with scrutinising internal manufacturing processes across multiple production sites, exploring opportunities to reduce waste, cut emissions and minimise the company’s impact upon the environment. Beardow Adams has already invested heavily in equipment that enables it to manufacture adhesive products in an environmentally friendly way.

“The manufacturing process at Beardow Adams is under constant review,” says Lesley Sheldon. “Water use is closely monitored for example, as are waste levels, which incidentally are very low. As a process, the blending of materials to make hot-melt adhesives produces almost zero waste. Virtually 100% of the materials used by the process emerge as 100% useable product.”

Packaging is another area of focus for the Green Team. Increasing numbers of customers will only accept deliveries of adhesives in paper sacks, rather than plastic ones. Beardow Adams has responded to this trend by making the necessary paper packaging available as part of a structured plastic reduction scheme.