Environmentally Responsible Refrigeration Systems
The company is recognised world-wide for expertise in the design, installation, service, and maintenance of environmentally responsible refrigeration systems.
Industrial refrigeration systems that use hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants (HFC), that are poorly designed and maintained, can contribute significantly to global warming. This is due to the refrigerant having a high global warming potential (GWP), giving rise to direct emissions because of leaks resulting from poor maintenance, and increased indirect emissions because of inefficient system design.
Therefore, 3CL promotes the use of natural refrigerants, such as ammonia and carbon dioxide. Both are excellent long term refrigerant choices and are climate neutral. Ammonia has zero ozone depletion and zero GWP, whilst carbon dioxide has a GWP of just 1 and is the zero basis for the entire GWP refrigerant scale. Furthermore, carbon dioxide has no flammability or toxic risks.
In addition to our promotion of natural refrigerants, 3CL always designs for maximum efficiency, to minimise the indirect carbon dioxide emissions by reducing the absorbed power of the refrigeration system.
We are committed to minimising the environmental impact of our activities and aim to achieve continual improvement in environmental performance by:
- Encouraging sub-contractors, designers, and suppliers to adopt environmental policies and management systems that are satisfactory to us
- Reducing the environmental impacts of our sites and their effects on their local communities by keeping sites clean and tidy; and adopting reasonable controls for preventing air, ground, water, or noise pollution
- Making use of opportunities to minimise waste and to reuse or recycle materials
- Training employees and promoting environmental awareness and commitment
- Ensuring compliance with current legislation, regulations, codes of practice and other requirements on environmental matters relevant to our operations
- Ensuring the efficient use of natural resource
Carbon Reduction
With vehicle fuel responsible for 95% of 3CL’s carbon emissions, we are committed to tackling this issue to improve the air quality in communities in which we operate.
We are constantly reviewing the suitability of electric vehicles and we will continue to monitor the development of both vehicles and the charging infrastructure.
We believe that BEV (Battery Electric) vehicles are suitable for most company car users, and these are being phased in at vehicle change. Currently we have been trailing 1 off BEV car, with further potential on order. This will be a rolling programme, which will eventually see a 30% reduction in our carbon emissions.
We further believe that the current Commercial Vehicle offerings are not consistent with the requirements of our fleet and the demands of our customer base, such options are being constantly monitored and we hope that we can transition to a fully electric fleet by 2030.
We now install telemetry systems in 100% of our commercial fleet, which is making our drivers safer and more efficient. We can review their driving behaviours such as acceleration and braking. This has resulted in significant MPG increases and reductions in CO2 emissions.
The telemetry systems are a key factor in our “Dynamic Resource Scheduling” (availability of engineers and their proximity to each job) thus minimising journey length and consequently fuel usage.
Our Premises are fitted with Solar Panels which generate 90% of the electricity required, and for the residual requirements we engage only with suppliers who provide renewable or non-fossil energy sources.
The solar panel array is supported by the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.
We have already replaced traditional lighting in our offices with more energy efficient LED lighting, thereby reducing consumption.
Our office air conditioning system uses separate ground and first floor air to liquid heat pumps for heating and cooling, whilst the office operating temperature setpoints have been widened to minimise the use of the heat pumps operation and thus the energy consumption whilst being fed by the solar panels when environmental conditions are suitable.
We will work actively with our supply chain partners to understand where we can assist in their own carbon reduction programmes.