The environmental challenge is our opportunity.
Many severe environmental and social challenges we face today are driven by unsustainable consumption and irresponsible manufacturing and shipping. In the age of information a new generation of consumers is increasingly conscious of this, and expect solutions from trades and craftsmen they trust. Purpose-driven businesses, that are genuinely offering more sustainability on every level.
Some products and services are luxuries and others essential. We view our sash window repair and manufacturing services as the latter. The frames we manufacture, and the repair service we deliver protects your building, complements the historical aesthetics and keeps you warm whilst providing energy saving benefits. In our opinion, it’s not just about the post installation benefits. We believe the practices and ethics we follow are key to us succeeding in our quest to become carbon neutral and the UK’s most sustainable and ethical producer, and repairer of authentic wooden sash windows.
How we achieve it
We practice what we preach. Offering a bespoke service has always been one of our flagship service benefits. Each property we work on is different, so a flexible and agile approach organically became the methodology we adopted when we started nearly ten years ago. In more recent years, following the government manufacturing commission’s inaugural report in 2015: ‘Industrial Evolution: Making British Manufacturing Sustainable‘ we further invested in our local Sussex based manufacturing facility, where we optimised how we manufacturer all of the sash window frames we install. The report allowed us to understand the foundations required to optimise our manufacturing production line, so that we were producing window frames in the most sustainable manner possible. We call it mindful-manufacturing, whereby our objective is to achieve a sustainable evolution, rather than revolution.
With our ethos being to repair first, rather than replace, we have always been able to provide a multitude of environmental benefits relating to reducing waste disposal. Add to that the energy saving benefits our customers experience and the investments made into our manufacturing facility and you will hopefully see the initiatives we are proactively taking for the good of our environment.
Our supply-chain
At the same time, in order for us to truly realise our goal of becoming carbon neutral, we pay careful attention to our raw material supply chain. It’s a great positive to be able to say we’re a British manufacturer and it’s something we’re very proud of. But, if we work with supply partners that don’t have the same, or similar outlook then our efforts won’t carry the value we need to achieve the results we want. Think about it, how can any business become ‘carbon neutral’ if their suppliers are polluting? That’s why we follow a strict Supplier Quality Assurance process, whereby we select and measure our supplier performances.
The criteria we use includes key essential environmental indicators that must be met, or exceeded. These include:
Supplier locality
All of our wood is either of UK, or European origin. We do not import wood from further afield due to the carbon footprint left by the import shipping.
Deforestation policy
We only work with timber suppliers that are FSC (forestry stewardship council) certified and have a published an anti-deforestation policy. We expect a minimum of two trees to be planted every time one is cut down.
Environmental policy
Before a business becomes a supplier of ours they must have an environmental policy that incorporates sustainable and ethical practices into their internal operations; such as energy saving and recycling.
Our team
We’d never be able to achieve our sustainable and ethical objectives without our whole team on-board. Fortunately, we’re privileged to have some very ethically conscious people at Sash Window Restorations; they are the guys who have allowed us to realise what we are trying to achieve. It’s one thing to be conscientious about the environment at home, but if you can apply the same ethics at work, then you can really make a difference and that’s what we’re trying to do.
Join the evolution
We hope that an insight into how we approach ethics and sustainability gives you a refreshing perspective on how trade and craftsmen can add environmental benefits to the services they offer. We’re in it for the long haul and will continue to improve how we work to serve a sustainable future for our customers, industry and future generations. When you work with Sash Window Restorations you can do it safe in the knowledge that we genuinely care about everything we do.
