Conferences explore how to be green while cutting costs

The UK national standards body has organised two conferences, which will take place this summer, that aim to advise business how they can use sustainable and environmental standards to help cut costs.

Environmental manufacturing​

The environmental manufacturing event will look at a number of energy management and environmental standards including the recently released carbon life cycle standard, PAS 2050.

PAS 2050 was created by the Carbon Trust, Defra and the BSI Group and provides a consistent method of calculating the carbon emissions involved in a product or service throughout its life cycle.

It is designed to enable companies to identify the stages in the product’s life cycle that are responsible for the biggest emissions, and work to reduce them, which according to the standards designers can reduce costs at the same time.

The international standards ISO 14001 and 14004 that focus on environmental management will also be discussed during the meeting, as well as a number of energy management standards.

There will also be a session on the ‘future of manufacturing’, which will look at the potential of new technologies within the manufacturing process and include case studies from relevant organisations, explained the BSI Group’s Lucy Fulton.

Sustainable design​

The second of the events focuses on sustainable design, with a look at how companies can tackle this even in a recession.

Governmental sustainable design initiatives will be explored, as well as information on designing for reuse and refilling.

Case studies from a variety of organisations leading the way in sustainable design will be investigated and according to Fulton the conference is relevant for all sections of manufacturing.