Page 39 - Ei Christmas Magazine 2025

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Waste Reduction Project
Carbon Footprint
Responsible sourcing
Building for a Sustainable Future
Sustainability Bootcamp
Reduce Reuse Recycle
Restaurant Waste
Sustainability
Reduce, reuse, recycle is the philosophy of
sustainability. Every year, tonnes of waste from
our factory goes to incineration. This is better than
landfill but is still not good enough to achieve the
high goals we have set ourselves as a company.
We need to reduce, reuse or recycle more.
Some new initiatives have been kicked off to
push more of our waste material into the circular
economy.
Photo shows James & Bill with some of the
recycling plastic being reused.
Supplier waste is the biggest proportion of all waste within the
factory. We buy a huge amount of material from around the world.
To protect the components during shipping, they need to be packaged
correctly. Around 10 streams of packaging material like bubble
wrap, battery trays and the backing plastic for the gaskets make up
70% of our incinerated waste. We are working with our suppliers to
reduce this packaging material or replace it with recyclable material.
The facilities team have made huge progress over the last few years
to reduce our scope 1 and scope 2 Carbon emissions. 90% of all our
electricity used in the factory is now coming from renewable sources.
On top of this over 2,400m3 of water is being harvested from our new
building. 90% of lighting is ECO lighting and there is a 33% reduction in
natural gas being used. Huge achievement. Well done to all!
To continue to encourage staff
involvement in generating sustainability
ideas we continued the ‘Idea of the Month’
in 2025 and received three great ideas
from Yvonne Meaney, Sean Doherty,
Eimear Tierney & Giully Bomfim.
In 2026 we will continue this initiative,
so please keep the ideas coming.
Every organisation has a duty of care and an ethical responsibility to make sure we protect the
environment and the workers in the supply chain. We buy goods and services from over 400
manufacturers around the globe. These manufacturers are in over 60 countries.
In 2025 we introduced the position of Responsible Sourcing Vendor Engineer. Bryan Sexton
along with Ola Zurakowska, Quality Engineer, and our outside audit partners have now
started visiting manufacturing sites and auditing them on Sustainability, Ethics, Quality and
Health & Safety.
Over the next 3 years 95% of the top 100 manufacturers that we use will be audited.
This is a key part of our sustainability.
Last year we organised sustainability
training for all the production and warehouse
operators. This year we did a bootcamp with
all the office staff. A lot of good ideas came
from both groups. Better waste management
in the restaurant and across the factory was
a common theme. The above actions are in
response to that!
As a joint venture with the Shannon Chamber
Ei have started an initiative to share with other
companies our waste product information to see
what they may use. For example, bubble wrap is
perfectly reusable. Other businesses close by may
be buying it for their packaging. Other plastics
may also be of use to other businesses increasing
circularity for all.
What we can’t reduce or reuse
we will then try to recycle by
engaging a third part recycling
company. Not all material can
be recycled but a lot more than
we currently recycle can!
Every year we use up to 1 million condiment sachets between salt,
pepper, ketchup, mustard etc. These sachets, especially the plastic ones,
create a huge amount of waste and also contaminate the dry recyclable
material in our bins. James Madigan has begun a project to work with
Aramark to reduce all these sachets and improve our waste segregation
area so that our restaurant waste will reduce. Our waste material can then
be clearly segregated and recycled where possible. Everybody in Ei can
play their part here. If we all use the correct bins within the restaurant and
throughout the plant, a huge amount of extra material can go to recycling.
Ola & Bryan
Sean Doherty
Yvonne Meaney Eimear Tierney Giully Bomfim