VIP Polymers lights up its working environment with sustainable switch

A rubber seals and gaskets manufacturer says it has “significantly cut” its energy consumption and overall carbon emissions after installing LED lights at its production facility.

VIP Polymers, based in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, has cut its carbon emissions for the site by an estimated 150 tonnes following the installation of low-energy LED lights as part of the company’s sustainability strategy.

The new LED lighting has also reduced energy costs by 20 percent – equivalent to a saving of £28,000 per annum – and increased the lux rating by 35 percent, creating a brighter working environment.

"Switching to LED lighting has had immediate benefits. As well as reducing energy costs, it has created a much-improved environment for our production teams, enhancing their wellbeing,” explained Mick Gilchrist, VIP Polymers’ Operations Director.

"From a business perspective, we expect this to deliver further gains in terms of improving staff morale, which feeds into improved productivity and quality control, and better staff retention."

In an installation programme carried out by the in-house maintenance team, sodium and fluorescent strip lights were replaced with 182 twin-strip LED units across the entire factory floor, the rubber mixing department, maintenance areas, the canteen, and production offices.

VIP compounds and mixes the rubber for the products it manufactures, which include pipe seals and gaskets, tunnel segment gaskets, and rail support gaskets for infrastructure projects around the world. The process is energy-intensive, which makes the company particularly keen to reduce energy consumed for non-production processes.

"Improving our sustainability through initiatives like this is vitally important to support our development of advanced, cost-effective manufacturing processes, and to act as a responsible international business,” Gilchrist continued.

"For example, we have also invested in new inverter technology that is allowing us to reduce the energy consumption of our production cooling system by up to 80 percent during periods of low demand."