Bookmark 07-20-2007

Donaldson: Environmental Improvements

Expert filtration media supplier Donaldson Membranes, Newton Le Willows, England, continues to make environmental improvements after achieving ISO14000 in response to requests from customer and end-users. As part of its on-going improvements under the standard, Donaldson Membranes is now organizing teams and given them targets to reduce the amount of waste produced. They are also looking for a waste management company to develop new and existing ideas for reducing the quantity of material sent to landfill.

Prior to ISO14000 the company already had certified quality standards and a basic environmental management in place at its Hull site, including such practices as the segregation of metal and cardboard from the general waste streams. However these systems were not formalized and there were no means of dealing with problems or ideas for improvement. So Quality Manager Ian Metcalfe created a special Environmental Improvement Team and set about attaining

ISO14000. This meant a formalization of practice and improvements, starting with an initial process of checking the company’s compliance to all applicable environmental legislation and drawing up an action plan to ensure that all failures were corrected. Business operations were also investigated to assess how they interact with and affect the environment.