SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainability

Welcome to my sustainability page

Sustainability for me is, and continues to be, a journey rather than a destination. I feel that even with the best will in the world we can always do more to protect the environment and minimise the impact of our actions and we can always do better!

I'm constantly re-assessing what I do, how I do it and how the actions of my business are impacting the world around me to see what can be improved, we all have a duty of care to the planet we inhabit.

Join me on my journey and follow it below:

As you can see here the first thing I did on my  sustainability journey was to get in touch with my energy provider for my home and office and switch my energy tariff to upgrade to the 'Greener energy' one!  


Greener energy supplied by my provider OVO is generated by wind, solar, hydro and biomass (that’s organic matter that can be used as fuel). Each source renews itself incredibly quickly, over and over again, making it a great alternative to fossil fuels. 


While we are on the subject of the electricity consumed by my business, I also upgraded to a smart meter to enable me as a business to monitor the energy usage more closely and minimise any wastage. Monitoring the energy usage has enabled me to be much more efficient and dramatically reduce the amount of electricity my business consumes. I've invested in smart power strips which reduce what is known as 'phantom power' by shutting down power to products that go into standby mode. I've decreased the brightness of all my screens to reduce power consumption and I
have also switched all bulbs in the office and my home to energy saving LED lightbulbs. I also use natural light by opening the blinds wherever possible, sometimes it really can be as simple as that! 

I also like to take part in 'Earth Hour' organised by the World Wildlife Fund every year where the goal is to get as many people in the world as possible to switch off all electricity. If you are interested in joining in the next Earth Hour it will be Saturday 22nd March 2025, 8:30 pm – 9:30 pm! It's just an hour and could make a big difference!

During this journey I've discovered so many things I could do whilst I'm in the office. The first thing I did was switch card machines from a conventional card reader that printed receipts on rolls of paper to a more modern alternative that offers the customer a choice of receiving their receipt by text or email. I've switched from printing customer invoices to emailing them directly instead. I've also switched to paperless bills and bank statements and have become almost a paperless office. Of course there are some times when paper is still necessary and in these cases I use eco friendly recycled paper products, re-filable pens and re-fillable ink cartridges in the printer to minimise the impact on landfill and single use plastics.

To replace notepads, I invested in a whiteboard for daily planning / notes. I have installed water saving devices to reduce my water consumption including a flow regulator in the shower and a water displacement bag in all toilet cisterns. I have also made a water butt from recycled materials to collect rainwater and use when possible in place of tap water. When cleaning I use a re-usable mop and bucket and eco friendly cleaning products. 

I also buy in bulk wherever items are available in bulk to minimise packaging. Also worth noting when I fitted out my office I purchased all the furniture second hand to both eliminate the carbon footprint of manufacturing a new chair and also keep even more furniture out of landfill! I managed to get some really good deals too!

Wherever possible I will work from home to minimise the impact of my travel on the environment. The reality is, with my job, that's not always possible. I do, however always make sure wherever possible I walk or cycle instead of using the car. When I'm on the road I have re-fillable water bottles and hot drinks mugs to minimise waste and single use plastics. I also switched to re-usable bags and I carry around a couple of re-useable bags when shopping or collecting car parts. Prior to driving anywhere I always meticulously plan my routes ahead of time to ensure optimium efficiency of both my time and fuel usage. I always plan ahead with fuel stops, collection of parts/equipment and any other stops I need to make to keep diversions to a minimum and have no wasted journeys at all. I have taken a course in economic driving and practice it every time I get behind the wheel. I also do everything I can to maximise fuel efficency, I keep the weight of the vehicle down by never having a full tank of fuel and only carrying the tools and equipment I need for the jobs I have booked that day rather than always carrying around a full tool kit. Regular maintenance and servicing is also at the heart of this to  keep optimum fuel efficiency and to minimise the chance of breaking down, which would greatly affect my impact on the environment in many ways. One of the crucial parts of this is regularly checking the tyre pressures as under-inflated tyres can hugely impact the fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Finally I administer dipetane to the fuel tank every time I fill up, this innovative fuel technology is said to create a more efficient and complete fuel burn. This process lowers dirty exhaust emissions, benefiting the environment by reducing harmful pollutants, improving fuel economy and also saves me money. The enhanced combustion enabled by Dipetane results in less carbon clogging up the engine, less baked on carbon means reduced maintenance of expensive hardware such as injectors, DPFs and EGR Valves. Dipetane in theory will extend the car’s engine life while maintaining its efficiency. When washing my car I use a PH neutral car shampoo that is bio degradable (The one I use is Williams Racing, the F1 team, Sophisticated biodegradable car shampoo) and I wash the car by hand saving water as opposed to using a car wash/ jet wash. A typical automatic car wash uses approx 160 litres of water per car whereas I use 3 buckets of water efficiently lowering the figure of water used down to just 42 litres.

Sometimes I even need to work abroad and so flying is necessary. Whenever I do have to fly I always make sure I offset my carbon emissions. Here you can see the details from my most recent work trip to Milan and back where I paid to offset the 189.52kg of CO2e generated by my share of the flight. When I do fly I meticulously plan ahead exactly what tools and equipment I will need to avoid carrying any unnecessary weight on the aeroplane that will cause it to burn more fuel, creating un-necessary emissions. I also pack light when it comes to my personal baggage I need to take as well. These may seem like very small things but I honestly believe if we all do as many as we can of the 'little things', the small changes and small considerations they really will add up to making a big difference.

To keep up with the latest alternative fuel cars I have invested in the latest training on electric, hydrogen and hybrid vehicles. I have a Level 4 EV qualification and regularly attend conferences and trade fairs to keep up to date with the latest in alternative fuels. Most recently I attended Automechanika 2024 in Frankfurt, Germany where I was able to attend training seminars relating to the latest in Hydrogen powered vehicles. At Automechanika in Frankfurt I was able to test drive and examine a hydrogen bike, one of the latest VW electric car models and even had a test drive and chance to see up close a unique project currently being refined by the University of Dortmund called the Nuevo 35, named so because the CO2 emissions of the Nuevo35 over its entire life cycle - production, an estimated 400,000 kilometers of driving and recycling - converted to every kilometer driven, reach the spectacularly low value of 35 grams of CO2! Also at this years Automechanika they had a great sustainability area where there was a bank of exercise bikes which were power chargers so you could charge your phone or device by pedal power, I made a quick video of myself using one to charge my phone and you can see that on my Youtube channel! (click on the youtube icon at the bottom of this page)

As my journey has progressed it's rapidly become an addiction and a personal challenge to always think about what I'm doing and what more I can do, In the course of the journey I have switched from aerosol spray cans for consumables like brake cleaner and replaced them with re-fillable bottles that can be pressurised with a hand pump. I've replaced blue roll with recycled workshop rags, disposable latex gloves with re-useable textile ones and disposable seat covers with a re-usable textile one.  I also recycle all metals and break down/ strip apart faulty parts that are beyond repair to seperate the different types of metal etc for optimum recycling. Not to mention of course recycling all packaging from car parts etc and i have a storage bin for E-scrap recycling too. I have a very strict recycling regime where something is only binned as an absolute last resort if it can't be recycled or re-purposed in another way. I've also adopted an ethos to always, wherever possible, repair parts and only replace as a last resort. When I do need to replace a part I always use re-conditioned parts where possible and recycle the old parts.

Part of the journey for me is trying to inspire others as I go along. I've uploaded some videos to my youtube channel which you can find by clicking on the youtube icon at the bottom of this page. Here you can find videos such as "Five tips for optimising fuel economy" "10 tips to make your business more sustainable" and "Charging my phone by pedal power" These can be found on the sustainability playlist on the youtube channel.


If you look at my Instagram page you will see a highlight reel of me implementing these proesses from Instagram stories back as far as 2019, stories showing me using re-fillable hot mugs, passing on tools and equipment to support new trainee mechanics and save the carbon footprint of creating new books/tools, working on alternative fuel vehicles such as electric and hybrid vehicles, cycling where possible, training to work on electric/hybrid/alternative fuel vehicles, repairing rather than replacing including my blackberry phone which I've had since 2018!!!, seeing the dortmund university project, hydrogen cycles and powering my phone by pedal power, that particular post of mine reached a really big audience as it was shared by the BBC Radio 2 DJ OJ Borg who follows me on Instagram and sometimes shares my stories to help spread the wrod!  Click on the Instagram logo at the bottom of this page!

I'm constantly looking for new ways to do more both as a business and as a human being so this drive for being more ecologically sound extends past my business and into my personal life too.  For example in January this year I set myself a goal of charging my phone without plugging into the 240v supply at home to draw power from the national grid. I do this by using power banks which are also not charged by the grid. I have a work phone and a personal phone both of which I charge from the 12v sockets in my car and once they are fully charged I unplug them and charge up my portable power banks. When I'm at home and my battery runs low I just plug into one of the power banks. It started as a challenge but it actually becomes pretty easy once you make it a habit! This challenge has allowed me to reduce my electricity consumption at home/in the office. I discovered that food waste when put into landfill will slowly decay and give off methane, a much more destructive greenhouse gas. In the compost, it decays quickly and becomes soil for the gardens and a natural fertiliser! So I started a compost bin for my food waste. I started doing 'Meat Free Monday' about 10 years back, an initiative where by not eating meat at least one day a week we help the environment, save animals and improve our health. I've since gone a bit further and now often cook meat free meals for my main evening meal, on average I cook meat free meals approx 5 days a week. Something I've recently discovered is 'plogging' I like to jog every now and then to keep fit and so I have started to have a little go at plogging, which is just picking up litter while jogging! 
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