The Shropshire Group has committed to delivering a reduction in its carbon footprint of 30 per cent by 2020.

To help drive the changes needed in culture and practice, the Shropshire Group last year established an energy reduction team. Operating under the chairmanship of group finance director Steve West and group technical director Dr Ed Moorhouse the team covers all business activities and has representation from all operating sites across three countries.

West said: “To date we have successfully reduced our emissions by five per cent through small cultural changes. As we push towards our 30 per cent reduction target, we may have to make some major investments in green technology, but to-date we have achieved it by simply raising the profile within the business.”

Over the course of the last year, with support from Bangor University, the group has established the principle of recording carbon emissions in line with PAS 2050 standards. All employees have been engaged to drive a grass roots approach to practice, and investment decisions are now subject to a ‘carbon reduction’ assessment.

Dr Moorhouse added: “One of the key challenges for the group has been the development of suitable methodologies by which we can capture emission data across the range of operations and locations.

"We’ve now developed a standardised approach to data capture enabling us to produce comparable footprint datasets that we can all work from. This makes it much easier for us to manage our reduction on a KPI basis - the same way in which we would look at commercial and production efficiencies.”

The group - which includes G’s Marketing - initiated Footprints 4 Food Ltd, a carbon footprinting service for food businesses, alongside Bangor University.

The 30 per cent reduction by 2020 is based on a 2007 base.