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General: I am looking for UK-based, SME-sized manufacturers of "eco/green" products
I hope this thread is OK - I am trying to compile a list of UK-based, (SME-sized) manufacturers of "eco/green" products. I thought you chaps would have some ideas / contacts etc to help me.
for example, and I've not yet found that many;
www.resilica.com - make kitchen workstops from recycled glass, as an alternative to granite. www.visionarysoap.co.uk - make fair trade soaps.
Please post up some links of manufacturers you are aware of. (The products don't have to be recycled)
Chris Have you defined exactly what you mean by eco/green.
Not to pick anyone out as such, but using your two examples. Is the total energy involved in making a recycled glass worktop any less than a granite one. Does it create any more jobs, is creating jobs a good thing.
And do we really need soap and its associated high water usage
How about the makers of variable flush devices to retrofit to exg cisterns? There's at least one which is (as far as I know) *made* in UK - certainly the manuf is based in UK. And some of the smaller 'green' insuation manufs? A Scottish SWH manuf almost certainly qualifies. And that's from 2 minutes' thought. There must be bucket-loads more.
Errr, did I allude to ICE and WS Atkins? Not knowingly! (Although I find ICE extremely useful).I was thinking more of specific products, which I did not mention initially because I did not wish to be seen to be advertising.
I Googled: ''UK manufacturers of environmental products'' and even the first page gave a couple.
I wonder if I am misunderstanding your quest, since you apparently only came up with a small number.
Faced with the same task I would simply have broken potential manufs into categories - say paints, insulation, windows and doors, etc etc., and then looked up their 'domestic credentials'.
Can you give us more clue of what you want the list to achieve? Is it simply that - a list of UK products - or are you looking for someone who might manufacture a product you are thinking of, or something?
Hi, I think the key words here are SME's and UK manf. This would exclude a uk branch of a bigger outfit unless they are operating independantly. Just as well you didnt use "sustainable" as we have already had a debate on the meaning of that.
To be clear are you looking for instances of products manf here in the UK by SME's but with the "eco" tag on them? That would exclude folk who manf non eco related products but try to do so in the best possible way. So includes things that do eco things and only that (eg an energy saver). Or perhaps an eco version of something that isnt inherently eco - a recycled degradable plastic carrier bag for example.
It might prove to be quite a small list eco/sme/uk - even if some of the stuff were a bit eco bling it will be interesting to see - thinking hats on.
Hi, I just had a quick look at greenspec dot co uk under building products. Lots there that have had some sort of greenish assessment. However, looking at the manf detail to distill out those made in UK and small enough to be an SME would be just a case of working through.
I'd do it in stages - i'd like to see a made in UK list, then a further iteration as to whether SME or not.
And Tom's suggestion of sawmills begs for a definition of "manufacturing", because you can't get much more 'eco' than a UK-grown tree. Or are you asking for information on companies who make things from that tree?
I went to see 'Matilda's Planet' yesterday. They're a new company develping a huge factory site in Port Talbot to manufacter solid wall insulation, LEDs, radiant electric heating panels and large rooftop wind turbines. They've got some excellent ideas and are really keen on building jobs locally.
Plus what appeared at one time to be a consensus on here, unless opinions have changed meanwhile, that locating turbines on rooftops "was not a good idea".
Arguably the rooftops you choose. I was not being 100% flippant when I referred to large rooftops (well, about 99%). There are some installations on tower blocks which may work if mast height is tall enough. A lot will depend on turbulence (or not) from surrounding buildings and the building itself. Point-blocks with a good distance (and height advantage) between them and neighbouring buildings *may* have a good non-turbulent wind resource, but really good wind speed in urban areas is rare.
The vast majority of low-rise potential sites will suffer too much from turbulence.