Peter Frings
28 October 2024

When Stamper Discs was set up in 2018/2019, we knew that manufacturing stampers was an electricity-intensive business. So we’ve been on a zero-carbon electricity tariff since the day we set up our first factory.

As a start-up, we were preoccupied for the first 3 or 4 years in fine-tuning our processes, winning customers, scaling up, and building a reputation. And running on renewable energy was the only significant sustainability step we took in our first years.

But by the end of 2021, we were able to pause for breath, and decided to undertake a rigorous carbon footprint of our business – quantifying where our emissions were coming from was important to help us decide where to focus our attention.

The results of our first carbon footprint, for the year March 2022 to Feb 2023, are summarised here. 

The two most significant elements of our carbon emissions were from the manufacture of Nickel S Pellets, and the manufacture and air freight of lacquers and cutting of the lacquers.

Because we bought electricity on a zero-carbon tariff, our energy usage was not included in our footprint. However, it is important that companies also account for emissions using a ‘location-based’ emissions factor. This is calculated using the average emission intensity of the local grid from where we source power, and means that businesses have to also report their actual energy consumption. (You can read more about the difference between market-based and location-based reporting of electricity emissions in this GHG Protocol Guide.)

In the year 2022/2023, we consumed 131,250 kWh or electricity. Using a location-based emissions factor, (and also including Scope 3 ‘well-to-tank’ emissions and transmission grid losses), the emissions attributed to our electricity consumption totalled 34,382 kg CO₂e.

In the year under review, we produced 12,788 pieces of metalwork. Combining this figure with our electricity and emissions data, we can calculate ‘intensity factors’ of:

10.26 kWh electricity per piece of metalwork

2.69 kg CO₂e from electricity consumption per piece of metalwork.

These metrics are an important benchmark, and we hope to reduce these by the time we complete our next carbon footprint.

Our organisational footprint (excluding electricity related emissions, as a result of using a ‘market-based’ emissions factor) was 201,013 kg CO₂e. This equates an intensity of 15.72 kg CO₂e per piece of metalwork produced.

This tells us that using a ‘location-based’ emissions factor for our electricity consumption would add around 17% to our ‘emissions per piece of metalwork’. Our electricity consumption is therefore less significant than our consumption of nickel, or the environmental impact of the cut lacquers we receive – but these latter two elements are largely outside of our control.

Having established these benchmarks of our environmental impact, what steps have we taken so far?

Energy

With the help of investors, we moved our operations to a new factory in April 2023. Owning our building gave us control of how it was fitted out and hence our energy consumption.

Actions taken included:

• removing gas supply from the building and using heat-exchangers/heat pumps for ventilation and heating.
• installing modern roof insulation and a new roof
• design and installation of more energy-efficient plating baths
• smart controls of heating/ventilation
• motion sensor lighting
• installing the largest possible solar panel array that our roof could accommodate. We now have 104 solar panels on our roof, generating almost 40,000 kWh of clean energy each year.

Future steps include:

• analysis of electricity consumption of plating baths, separate from heating and ventilation, to identify possible savings
• investigate voltage reduction for motors
• design and install new cleaning/passivation tanks and pre-plating line for minimal energy consumption.

Measures: 

• reduction in electricity consumption per metalwork piece produced.

Nickel

There is only one supplier of the Nickel S Pellets we use – Vale. They provide annual product carbon footprints and are committed to continually reducing their emissions.

For our part, although nickel trim waste from stampers is always recycled, we aim to reduce the percentage of waste nickel generated each year.

Actions planned include: 

• purchase of new circle shears to reduce trimming errors and rework

Measures: 

• calculate amount of nickel sent to recycling each year in relation to nickel purchased and reduce this percentage year-on-year

Elimination of harmful chemicals

Actions already taken:

• using electrolytic passivation instead of chemical passivation for 98% of our throughput
• development of a safe method of ‘de-silvering’, avoiding the use of ammonia or chromium -based strippers

Actions planned include: 

• development of a method of passivating copper metalwork without using dichromates. 

Reduction of waste streams

Our ‘rinse waste’ is currently stored in IBCs and periodically collected by a specialist treatment company. A better way to deal with this would be through evaporation technologies. We will also aim to reduce the amount of general waste sent to landfill.

Actions planned:

• Introduce in-house chemical waste treatment process

Measures: 

• reduce volume of chemical waste sent for treatment/disposal both in absolute terms and also per piece of metalwork
• reduce volume of general waste sent to landfill

Travel and staff commuting

A key criterion when we chose our new factory was that it was close to Sheffield city centre and public transport – so that our staff can easily walk, cycle, or take the tram to work.

We have also always operated a ‘no-fly’ policy within Europe if a destination can be reached by train within a day. 

Measures: 

• our carbon footprint for staff commuting should reduce each year (relative to the number of staff, and our metalwork output)
• our carbon footprint for business travel should reduce each year (relative to our metalwork output)