Big Bear Plastic is celebrating the completion of its ISO 14001 audit. The achievement has taken the company just six months to complete, leveraging a £2 million investment drive in new equipment and a modern ERP system. Now boasting an Environmental Management System that conforms to the highest international standards, the company hopes to minimise its impact on the communities it operates in, while also looking for new opportunities with domestic and global clients. This includes supplying parts to the off-highway, aerospace, and defence sectors, as well as its early inroads into the energy generation/storage market.
Big Bear Plastics
Daniel Gherghe, Quality Manager at Big Bear Plastics
“Achieving ISO 14001 accreditation for the first time in our 27-year history is a major milestone in our sustainability journey,” said Daniel Gherghe, Quality Manager at Big Bear Plastic. “Gaining the standard is important for winning new business, but bigger than that is the good practice it instils in everyone who works here. Thanks to the comprehensive nature of the audit, we were able to directly identify a host of performance improvements, and this gave us the platform to formalise roles and responsibilities and, importantly, implement a more data-driven system for resource consumption.”
He continued: “Ethically, it's the right thing to do - it provides a framework to systematically reduce our environmental impact. Strategically, it brings immense business value, enhancing operational consistency and resilience, ensuring environmental compliance and mitigating risk. It also strengthens our brand reputation as a responsible and forward-thinking manufacturing partner.”
Emma Hockley, Managing Director of Big Bear Plastic, added, “Modernising our production floor through the installation of two new CNCs, a new robot and a waterjet machine really accelerated our push towards the ISO 14001 accreditation. The £2m investment in new equipment, combined with the ERP system and new LED lighting throughout the site, has made us more efficient. It has also given us real-time data to make informed decisions that have reduced our environmental footprint even further. Encouragingly, the standard has allowed us to pitch for new work that we weren’t previously eligible for.”
Big Bear Plastic hopes to use ISO 14001 to launch future improvements, including:
- Exploring on-site renewable energy opportunities.
- Achieving ISO 45001 by the end of 2026.