How to go green 🍃 AND benefit financially in the world of small engineering businesses.

2 words  - Refurbishment & Recycling. It isn’t just about going green… it also benefits YOU and your customers financially.

I don’t know about other small engineering business owners / leaders out there but I am personally fed up of being contacted by these green energy consultants promising that if we pay them then they will help us with our "net zero agenda." 

Don’t get me wrong - I think it’s incredibly important that industry does have a green agenda, I’m a bloomin’ environmental science graduate after all. But what I don’t appreciate is the 'guilt trip' sales pitch rather than actually asking questions about our business and attempting to create me a solution that works for our business economically.

According to the Department for Business and Trade (2024), SMEs make up 53% of British private sector turnover and represent 99.9% of all UK businesses. But that also means that a bulk of the economy hangs on businesses which are actually pretty unstable and definitely under-resourced, especially in todays economy and especially with the jokers in this labour government. 

So if the environmental activist types want small businesses to invest in improving their environmental impact, most UK businesses can only do so from a place of prosperity. 

So in my humble opinion, when the narrative becomes about how we can win both financially and environmentally - that’s when the world will really change and how we will ultimately save our planet. 

Where Recycling and Refurbishment comes in...

If these green consultancies did bother to ask any questions, they’d soon learn that recycling and refurbishment is a key part of our business and this in my opinion, is one way that small engineering businesses can become more green and benefit financially. 

1. Retail...

Take the example of one of our prominent retail clients. We originally positioned a refurbishment offer to them because it would genuinely solve a massive problem they had (loads of old stock lying around). 

It would actually be more profitable for us to refurbish (no material costs) and the environmental benefits of recycling made everyone involved in the project feel really good (yey for the cultural win!).

More than this, it proved to us that there is a massive opportunity for our other retail and hospitality clients because they all face the same massive problem… as the economy flops around like a dying fish and discretionary spending regularly gets squeezed, shops, bars, hotels, restaurants regularly shut down certain sites and then open new ones when cheaper rents make it financially doable again. We’ve all seen our local Next and M&S disappear only to pop up down the road a few months later. 

Well each time a site shuts down, the business is left with a load of unused, unwanted shelving, clothes rails, tables and chairs, display cabinets etc. Yet, they are perfectly fine aside from a few scratches here or there and nothing is stopping the next brand that opens a site there from re-polishing, re-chroming, re-sizing or repainting to save all that metal from being thrown in the bin, whilst saving themselves huge cost and time that would come with buying new. 

Display wracking made for Barbour (by Savekers Solutions - one of our businesses within the Allied Global Engineering group) as an example of what is often left behind unused and unwanted when a brand gives up its lease.

Several portering chairs after being freshly powder coated.

And this is what we call a win-win. Marvellous! 

In my opinion, the reality for small businesses like us is that there has to be a win-win. And the “potential” of energy saving often pitched by these green consultants is not good enough.

Now we regularly pitch refurbishment as an offering when it’s appropriate and when there is a genuine cost saving to be had for the customer. 

2. The NHS

The NHS are another one of my favourite customer examples of finding the win win in going green. 

We all know the financial challenges the NHS faces. For the good of patient care, they cannot afford to waste money. However, their size and influence also lends an environmental responsibility that they are pressurised to prioritise - just as the business world is. 

A finished Porta 212 chair that we make and refurbish for the NHS and other private medical institutions

They have put a lot of PR resources into the concept of the “circular economy” recently because they too have identified refurbishment and recycling as a win-win for them. 

Our other fabrication businesses Griffiths & Johnson and G&J Logistics have long repaired the portering chairs and trolleys we supply into the NHS, but now our refurbishment offer is picking up more interest from our NHS customers.

Why spend 4 figures on a portering chair when you can get one that functions as brand new for half the cost? The metal work is preserved whereas the paint job, upholstery, wheels and accessories are either replaced or refreshed. It looks brand new, it feels brand new - but it isn’t!

The copper contact on the left has been refurbished by us before getting plated (on the right).

Steel pan instrument set made from recycled oil drums.

WIN WIN.

 3. Power Generation... 

We have long been refurbishing power grid contacts for National Grid in our machining business EGL Vaughan. In fact we very rarely make them new contacts now.

They simply ship us the contacts that have been zapped to death and BISH BASH BOSH we ship them back the same contacts that can go back into the power grid, good as new!

4. Bespoke projects 

And perhaps my favourite example comes from a new charity partnership Savekers have struck up with Steel Pan Music CIC where we are chrome plating old oil drums that have been recycled into steel pan instruments according to the tradition of the innovative inhabitants of Trinidad and Tobego.

So whilst this is a recycling project being driven by the customer this time, it’s still great to play our role.

...

Because refurbishment and recycling genuinely offer solutions to customers and profit margins to small businesses - this is what makes an environmental agenda viable. 

If you have some old metal you need sprucing up or repairing - don't hesitate to get in touch. (bethan.jepson@alliedglobal.co.uk).