How Johnsons Workwear is using less energy on its customers!

Johnsons Workwear is committed to energy efficiency improvement and continues to take steps in a continuous improvement strategy.

Reducing energy not only supports the Carbon Trust in its work to reduce carbon emissions, it also makes great business sense, saving money, supporting CSR targets and helping everyone in the fight against climate change.

Our sector is energy intensive… however our industry has worked hard to gain positive results, reducing its energy consumption by 19 per cent, and largely exceeding the government target of 12 per cent, in the first two-year target period.

Businesses in our sector have a responsibility for helping to support health and safety by providing the most relevant workwear for the healthcare, food preparation and manufacturing, chemical and pharmaceutical sectors and UK industry, and for ensuring that these garments are laundered to the highest standards for the protection of people.

Johnsons Workwear therefore looks at identifying opportunities for energy saving across the washing, drying and finishing processes without affecting the quality of the laundered items. We work closely with our trade association and examine specific processes to understand our energy use alongside our processes, equipment and upgrades.

Across our UK plants, we consistently monitor the gas and power used as part of the Climate Change Agreement, reporting to our Board on a monthly basis. At the end of 2019 we had reduced the kWh usage across all sites by 29% against the base year set in 2012.

Our energy efficiency strategy for our productions sites includes:
• Replacing burners on main steam generation equipment - a saving of between 12 – 17% on gas usage
• Installing LED lighting in our main production areas with lighting sensors which shutdown the power when required lighting levels are reached
• Provision of new skylights for increased natural light
• Replacing steam heating systems with controllable gas space heating
• Installing inverter controlled equipment - saving 5-10% on power
• Replacing steam finishing equipment with gas - a plant reduction of 10% on gas
• Installation of ‘grey’ water recycling, reusing the final rinse water on first washes in washer extractors on selective wash processes
• Waste water heat reclaim, using the heat from the effluent to heat incoming cold fresh water - saving 15 – 20% on gas required in wash processes

But it doesn’t stop there: we are continuously gathering and analysing data, looking at innovative energy efficiency initiatives and supporting continued capital investment. We have some exciting things to look out for in the future which include:

• Full water recycling,
• Reducing wash temperatures
• Pelletising waste to burn in main boilers
• Using biomass in main boilers

We’re committed to putting in more energy to using less energy for our business, our clients and our environment. We’ll keep you updated on our successes.