We Are Green – Swiss Laundry Cambridge

We Are Green

The Swiss Laundry Ltd & Camplings Ltd recognise the responsibilities and social duties it has to look after the environment, its staff, customers, neighbours and community.

We are committed to policies that minimise the adverse impact of our activities and aim to deliver on this promise in all parts of our operations. To ensure the effective implementation of this policy, we have given clear responsibilities and accountabilities to our executive directors against which they are measured.

What we're doing and what we've done?

We believe actions speak louder than words and so here is a summary of what we’ve done.

Investment

  • Laundries are heavy users of energy to heat water and iron linen. Modern equipment is energy efficient and we are committed to continue investing.
  • >90% of machinery is less than 5 years old
  • We aim to replace our vehicles every 5 years and have been purchasing euro 6 classification ahead of the legal requirements.
  • We have invested over £5m each at our two new Laundry facilities, one in Gt. Yarmouth and one in Papworth, Cambridge
  • We maintain our buildings and surroundings with our own permanent staff
  • Our board is prepared to make long term decisions and will continue to consider the wider effect of business decisions

 Recycle/re-use/Reduce

  • Our business is all about restoring linen to a reusable quality. It is our core activity and a philosophy we run throughout the organisation
  • Our washing machines recycle water and through heat recovery systems, only cold water leaves our site
  • Our driers are designed to finish at the optimum moisture content level
  • Our packaging is constantly under review and excess is retained and re-cycled
  • We have halved our equivalent water consumption through our investment in our new plant
  • Our ambition is to have zero waste to groundfill

Energy reduction

  • We re-use heat energy and circulate exhaust energy back into our process
  • Our investment in our two new facilities in 2016 and 2020 means we use 1/3 less energy per kilo of laundry washed
  • We carefully plan our distribution and monitor vehicle fuel economy
  • We promote the concept of ‘Linen Miles’ and focus on Customers within 1 hour from our sites
  • We monitor energy consumption continuously through the use of laundry dashboard(TM) to meet our objective of operating a sustainable business

Staff & Charitable activities

  • We are proud of the energy and enthusiasm our staff put into raising money for good causes
  • We support their activities and generally match fund their success from our profits
  • We share our financial success with our staff
  • Many of our Staff chose to stay with us – some for over 40 years
  • We try and develop our promote our staff from within
  • We select annually a charity to support