Environmental Policy
Introduction
Stoane Lighting are an employee owned specialist manufacturer of architectural lighting equipment based in Edinburgh. We recognise the importance of a sustainable approach to manufacturing. Our activities have an impact on the environment, it is our responsibility to minimise this impact to preserve the environment for the future.
This policy sets out how we do that. It is important to note that an environmental policy is ever evolving, we will never be satisfied with the status quo and will always seek to improve, we welcome external audit of our practices and wish to be challenged.
The approach: lead an examined life
All manufacturing ultimately harms. Stoane Lighting examines all its processes to minimise this harm. Stoane Lighting equipment is manufactured in Scotland with most processes under one roof. Where possible, components that cannot be made in house are sourced from local subcontractor suppliers and not from overseas. The impact of this approach is very much reduced.
Our equipment is manufactured to order only. The resources and energy required to manufacture products is only invested when there is a specific demand. This reduces the waste from typical manufacturing business models and also reduces our impact. Waste generated is minimised and dealt with responsibly through use of third party approved recycling companies. To monitor the use of natural resources and energy by the company and to ensure they are used as efficiently as possible. The company electricity supply comes from 100% renewable sources.
Our products are manufactured to last; robust mechanical design of components ensures that equipment produced lasts and does not need to be prematurely replaced. They are designed to allow repair and upgrade of components so that they can be refurbished at the end of serviceable life rather than disposed of.
Our mission is to encourage repair of lighting equipment rather than replacement and we actively seek to be challenged by our customers to make this possible for them. That's why our luminares are designed to be disassembled easily.
We select components for our designs based on their efficiency, aiming for the most efficient light sources, power supplies and optical system. We also aim to provide the best technical data we can to enable specifiers to be as accurate and concise with their schemes as possible. Building confidence in final results helps reduce over lighting and all the short and long-term environmental consequences of that.
Our aim is to reduce the use of plastic in packaging to zero and further, to use recycled cardboard packaging from goods inwards and neighboring businesses to package our products. This is to minimise virgin materials consumed (even if recyclable) whilst avoiding damage to goods in transit.
For our staff, they are informed of our obligations and responsibilities and they are included in decision making. One example of how everyone can do their bit is we incentivise more sustainable means of commuting to and from work i.e. cycling and walking.
We comply with and improve upon the standards required under relevant legislation. Right now we employ the use of industry available assessment metrics TM65 and TM66 to quantify the embodied carbon and circular performance of our products respectively.
We are participating in a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Napier University and Stoane Lighting with the support of Innovate UK. This KTP project looks to develop lighting specific methodology for the life cycle assessment of lighting products so that environmental impact associated with the product and use of our products can be quantified. Insights from the quantification of impact can be used to inform design and process decisions with the overall goal to reduce our impact in manufacture and importantly, the impact of products in use.
Legislation, recognition and cleaning up our own act
We are an annually audited member of the Lighting Industry Association in the UK who make sure that our systems, practices and equipment comply with all necessary standards. We are also a member of a WEEE recycling scheme. All products sold in the UK market can be picked up and recycled responsibly by our recycling partners. Their practices recover up to 98% of the materials used in the manufacturing of lighting equipment.
We will always give full cooperation to bodies administering environmental legislation.
We recognise however that the environmental performance of a company cannot be measured by the assessment of a policy document alone. Certification to recognised standards and by recognised bodies is one way of introducing formal inspection of our systems. Stoane Lighting are a proud certified B Corp and have an EcoVadis silver sustainability rating.
We also quantify our scope 1, 2 and 3 carbon (KgCo2e) impact through the scheme Earthly. We are a climate positive company, investing in nature and carbon removal projects to at least 110% of our annual calculated impact. Read more here: https://earthly.org/
Activism, influencing others and doing good
It is our belief that our practices and policies should be visible to the public. We wish to be challenged and educated on ways we can improve; tell us what we could do better, tell us about new practices or technologies.
We also recognise that as lighting manufacturers we are just a part of the system in the specification, design manufacturing, use and disposal/recycling of lighting equipment. As such we intend to play an active part in any such collective lighting community initiatives such as the GreenLight Alliance.
We go to the extent in our marketing activities to encourage repair of the lighting equipment you already have, explaining that we prefer to refurbish, repair and re-purpose old Stoane Lighting equipment over selling new. This is the Stoane Lighting ReNew capability.
We are collaborating with others in the industry (manufacturers, lighting designers and suppliers) via an informal collective to examine and advance sustainable practices within our industry.
We are conscious in our strategic policy making in this regard. We must design out sealed-in proprietary components that lead to whole sub-assemblies or luminaires that can’t be repaired and would therefore have to be disposed of. We actively encourage others to do the same.
Review
Our management strategy places importance in adhering to the processes outlined above, it includes rigorous review and corrective action procedures to foster a culture of continual improvement. Our approach is something we are proud of but wish to evolve and better.
All employees are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the company's environmental policy and are welcome to contribute on matters of continuous improvement.
Audit
We welcome external audit of our systems and procedures by any third party, be they customer or certification body. We can facilitate visits to our premises and will support information requests.