Painting a Greener Future with Bagnalls

Bagnalls were named Winner of the “Large Company – Environment” award, sponsored by Drax, at the West & North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, Raising the Bar ceremony, held in the majestic surroundings of the Leeds Civic Hall.

Like all companies, Bagnalls has a legal and social duty to ensure that it maintains and promotes good environmental practice. The company continues to drive forward its strategy to reduce, reuse and recycle in line with its ISO 14001 Environmental Accreditation. The company’s sustainable approach to painting a greener future impacts every area of its operations from office recycling through to switching off machinery when not in use.

The company is reducing the amount of waste going to landfill by looking at ways of recycling its waste streams into viable products. Work is being undertaken with vetted and approved waste management companies and leading paint manufacturers to recycle empty paint cans, an unavoidable waste stream for the painting and decorating industry. Plastic paint cans are shredded to be re-moulded into other products such as street furniture and metal ones are crushed to be reused in numerous forms.

In 2012, Bagnalls established its Community Paintbrush scheme to find ways of donating any unused liquid paint to local community projects, charities and customers to reuse spare paint before sending it to specialist waste contractors to recycle it into other by-products.  To date the company has helped support over 100 projects through its Community Paintbrush initiative, which has engaged young people in painting, and changed the lives of those living in the local communities.

To combat pollution, Bagnalls has introduced smart technology in its fleet of Econetic vans to monitor and control its carbon footprint. The company’s environmental efforts were recognised by Masternaut’s Fleet CO2 Certification programme, when Bagnalls were Gold certified for being one of only a handful of companies that achieved greater than 5% year on year reduction in carbon emissions.

The company is also adopting new technology to drive environmental benefits in its daily activities, such as surface preparation through grit blasting.  The latest equipment uses less abrasive, is dustless and produces significantly less waste than traditional methods.  This step-change in industrial coatings’ application supports the company’s commitment to innovation, sustainability and technology.

Bagnalls were also a short-listed finalist in the “Large Company – Economy” category for its commitment to being a fair employer, supporting local suppliers and offering training and development opportunities to apprentices.

Stephen Bagnall, Group Managing Director added “As a family business that has been socially responsible for generations, our nomination for the Economy award and win in the Environment category are further evidence that we continue to support initiatives that have real, tangible benefits to the local economy. This award is testament to all the care and hard work that my colleagues deliver on a daily basis to our customers across not only Yorkshire but throughout the UK”