Our Performance

 

Environmental Health & Safety Performance

Environmental Compliance

Certain of our processes at our Sandwich site are regulated by the Environment Agency, and are required to operate within prescribed limits with regard to releases to the environment. Our five year compliance record is given below.

We have had occasions where releases have exceeded our authorisation limits and have resulted in non-compliance. None of these have resulted in significant environmental impact. Although we have improved our performance during 2007, we have experienced a number of minor non-compliant events related to our waste to energy plant. We have agreed an action plan with the Environment Agency to improve our performance in this area and will undertake a review in the 3rd quarter of the year.

We have also installed additional solvent abatement equipment for our Pilot Plant to ensure continued compliance with our permitted limits.

Operator Performance and Risk Appraisal (OPRA) System

The Environment Agency operates a risk-based rating system to assess the environmental performance of authorised processes. On an A (best) to E (worst) ranking, the system assesses both potential environmental hazards and environmental management.

Our current rankings stand at C for the level of potential hazards and at A for their management, demonstrating the Environment Agency considers that we manage our potential environmental impacts to a high standard.

The Environment Agency also makes an appraisal of the internal compliance monitoring we make during the year to ensure sampling, monitoring and assessment against our authorised limits is carried out to specified quality standards. The OMA assessment did not reveal any significant issues. We will be addressing minor findings as part of our decision to gain accreditation for our internal monitoring team under the Monitoring Certification Scheme operated by the Environment Agency.

Integrated Pollution and Prevention Control (IPPC)

Our IPPC Permits, granted in 2006 for both our Manufacturing facility and Pilot Plant, are now fully operational.

Operating to the requirements of the Authorisations includes, assessment of the environmental impact of our operations and the requirement to use effective means to eliminate and minimise releases, known as Best Available Techniques.

Since implementation of IPPC we have successfully completed a number of continuous improvement projects (specified within the permits), including, additional protection related to preventing releases to land, waste minimisation reviews and action plans and review of emissions monitoring.