Roadstone Wood Ltd (a CRH Plc Group Company): Energy efficiency: attaining IS 393 certification

Company Description:
Roadstone Dublin Ltd. (RDL) is a wholly owned subsidiary of CRH plc. Roadstone is a progressive manufacturer and supplier of a comprehensive range of high quality building materials and products for the construction industry in Ireland. CRH plc is one of the top five in the building materials sector worldwide and has operations in 32 countries, with over 3,600 locations and 92,000 employees.

Business Issue:
It is a key part of Roadstone’s and CRH’s environmental policies to conserve resources by making efficient use of energy and raw materials. RDL has company-wide accreditation of its environmental management system to ISO 14001 and it pioneered a formalised energy management system in line with the recently developed IS 393 Energy Management Standard. Energy is a significant issue for Roadstone, both as an environmental issue and as a business cost.

Solution Applied:
Slane Quarry was chosen as a pilot location for a formalised energy management system as operations there are typical of Roadstone locations. RDL joined the Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI) Energy Agreement Programme and is committed to the strongest and most rigorous approach to energy management by developing IS 393 and implementing special investigations to continually develop new energy efficient opportunities. SEI, a government agency for the promotion and development of sustainable energy, carried out a gap analysis of existing systems at the quarry. Following this, a team responsible for implementing the energy management system was appointed. A Register of Energy Aspects was completed to assess each energy-using item at the location. This was backed up by energy monitoring, for example monitoring data from sub-meters and fuel flow meters on the blacktop plants. Along with other required documentation, standard operating procedures for the energy management system were created and key performance indicators set out. During development and implementation of the system, meetings were held on a monthly basis and progress reports were delivered to management.

Company Benefits:

  • The objective to have a formalised energy audit system that can be carried out at any Roadstone location was achieved: it is to be rolled out to a further eight locations within the CRH group in Ireland by the end of 2008. The lessons learned at Slane in the development of documentation and appropriate energy monitoring can be shared with other locations. As Kevin Donovan, Environmental Manager at RDL explains: “With implementation of the system, energy monitoring data showed an overall reduction in energy use at the Slane quarry of approximately 10%, simply through more systematic management”.
  • This significantly reduced Roadstone’s carbon footprint and business costs.

Stakeholder Benefits:

  • It supports SEI’s overall goal of promoting and developing sustainable energy. SEI noted that “Roadstone Dublin – Slane Quarry is among a leading group of companies certified to the IS 393 Energy Management System and are demonstrating best practice in their industry by adopting the most thorough approach to energy efficiency and reduction of energy related CO2 emissions”.
  • Roadstone’s customers can be even more confident that they are dealing with a responsible company.
  • Finally, increasing energy efficiency is driven by the benefit to the environment, which benefits everybody.

Challenges:
Being the first quarry in Ireland to attain the certification, the location had to develop complex specific documentation, much of which was difficult to write and was time consuming. Initially, it had been planned for the IS 393 system to function within ISO 14001 but it was not possible due to the complexity of auditing an integrated system as it was being developed.

Tip:

  • Get all staff involved.
  • Use all available guidance, for example the SEI technical guidance document was useful.

Departments Involved:
In developing the system, the Environment and Engineering departments were key; and in implementing the system, all departments and all staff were involved

Solution Champion:
Kevin Donovan, Environmental Manager, kdonovan@roadstone.ie and Naomi Cooper, Group Environmental Officer, CRH plc, ncooper@crh.com

Year
2008