Ambic Sustainable Environmental Practices  Download 

Company Awareness

Ambic is firmly committed to looking after the environment and minimising our impact upon it. We are committed to preserving the natural environment and accept responsibility for the environmental impact of all of our operations. We are currently complying with all relevant environmental regulations and are committed to establishing procedure and best practice to ensure that we continue to develop toward securing a sustainable environment for our business. We will continue to be environmentally aware and strive to adopt new practices. We will be receptive to developments in technology that will lessen the environmental impact that our business has on our community and for the benefit of our customers.

Little Acorns

We wish to preserve and protect our world for our children and grandchildren, instilling within them the importance and value of our environment for many generations to come; and it all starts with planting that initial seed!  It is from little acorns that the mighty oak will grow and we are committed to providing the optimum educational environment for the saplings within our schools.

Ambic Products & Services

Long lasting furniture

We are proud of the diversity and adaptability of our product range that is forever being developed to meet the evolving needs of our customers and those in their care. Our products are engineered to exceptionally high standards enabling a single furniture purchase to provide many years of reliable service before being moved for an alternate use in a different location without repair and still looking fresh and new. This fact alone makes good environmental sense as purchasing our quality comparably-priced furniture once will negate the need to dispose of two or three similarly priced and worn out inferior products into landfill over the same time period. Additionally, the strength of our furniture enables future refurbishment possibilities when needs change in the workplace. Refurbishment is far more environmentally friendly than replacement!

Made to order

We make all of our furniture to meet demand. This ensures that we are not left with surplus stock that deteriorates, dates and is unnecessarily discarded. Similarly, we have no need to stock-pile our products in dispatch warehouses around the country which negates the need for unnecessary heating and lighting of these storage sites, multiple forklift moves between racks to dispatch areas to dispatch vehicles, etc. Our nation is dependant upon high-volume profit-hungry organisations that mass-produce furniture that has been designed around profit (and not necessarily in the interest of the end-user or furniture durability). It is our belief that this has more of an impact on the environment than may initially have been recognised. Smart production and controlled production appear far less wasteful.

Pre-assembly

All of our furniture is pre-assembled by our experienced cabinetmakers and Ambic are committed to resist producing flat-pack furniture. This fact ensures that we lessen the impact on our environment by negating the need for packaging of any type. Ambic are committed to this production process as it ensures consistency of product at the hands of experienced craftsmen rather than forcing self-construction and the inevitable ‘instability' often associated with self-constructed furniture. The design and construction techniques that we, therefore, use within our furniture can be ‘safety' and ‘strength'-driven rather than ‘ease-of-construction' and ‘mass-production'-led like many flat-pack furniture manufacture.

Ambic Design Process

As we design all of our own furniture we are able to give environmental consideration from furniture conception. This allows us to attempt to reduce the environmental impact of our products throughout their life cycle through the choice of materials used as much as the efficiency of construction technique and material usage. The examples of this are numerous and allow for design and consideration to the CNC (computer numerically controlled) process whereby efficiencies of raw material sheet size are calculated prior to production to avoid excess material wastage and excess CNC machine/operator/power time. The fact that our designers have extensive hands-on and practical experience of the entire manufacturing process enable decisions to be made throughout the design process regarding economies such as the use of potentially ‘scrap' raw material or ‘off-cuts'. A slight modification to the furniture's design can facilitate far more economic board use and lead to less wastage. This knowledge is also vital in instances where exposed board edges can be minimised which leads to a reduction in the need for excessive edge treatment, masking, spraying and finishing.

Ambic are currently overhauling many products within our ranges as we are committed to lessening the impact on our environment. Most of the changes are not apparent to the customer as their alterations only affect internal construction and make for better economies in manufacture. One of the bonuses of this process, however, is that a slight modification during this process has led to cheaper-to-make quality furniture products and we are able to pass that saving onto our customers.

Raw Material Storage

Ambic has outgrown its present, disjointed production facilities and is investing in a purpose-built factory facility that will be considerably more efficient and certainly less impacting upon our environment than our present location. In addition to the inevitable environmental improvements that this new facility will bring one of the hidden benefits will be the ability to store raw material off-cuts more easily and so become more efficient in material usage. Greater storage capacity enables more intelligent purchasing opportunities of raw materials at more economic purchasing rates that leads to fewer and less environmentally-impacting deliveries.

Raw Materials

All Ambic furniture and fitted solutions are constructed using quantifiable materials by our own production team. With quality strength and durability as key factors of purchase, all raw materials are, where possible, sourced from UK-based suppliers where traceability of source is visible, managed and monitored. We are dedicated to sourcing materials that have minimal environmental impact within their country of origin and recognise the importance of being good citizens within the wider global society. Two of the main raw materials present within our furniture are steel and the wood-fibred product MDF.

Steel is 100% recyclable which enables us to recycle our surplus steel and metal off cuts through recognised recycling routes. No steel is, therefore, disposed of as ‘waste' as it is processed and reformed into a reusable form for resale by those companies employed.

Wood fibre constitutes approximately 70% of our raw materials used within Ambic products (predominantly medium density fibreboard [MDF]). This is a natural, recyclable and renewable material that conforms to all current certified schemes, notably the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).

Sustainably Managed Timber Sources

Ambic are wholly committed to only using suppliers of timber material that endorse these stringent regulations. This ensures that the wood within our furniture has been legally logged and traded from sustainably managed forests and conforms to our Government's timber procurement policy. The wood is traceable from its source under a Chain of Custody (COC) scheme whereby the supply chain of forest to processing plant, to depots, to customer is clearly recorded and independently audited by a third party organisation. This third-party audited scheme has been established to ensure that no cross-contamination of non-regulated timber finds its way into the supply chain. Ambic wholly support the good work being carried out across the world and support the enforcement by all environmental agencies to improve sustainable forest management to secure certified timber collection.

COSHH Standards

All of our adhesives, stains and lacquers meet COSHH standards. We are continually monitoring our chemical and solvent use and will continue to manage an improvement program with our suppliers to reduce solvent emissions. We recognise the environmental impact of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) and are working to minimise those processes within our production environment.

Responsible Ambic

With the impending construction of a new Ambic manufacturing facility (operational in 2009) we are able to implement more stringent, sensible advances towards a sustainable environment. We all have a duty of care for our environment and the impact that we have upon it. It is our aim to ensure that our customers are supplied with products that meet the highest environmental standards.

Surplus Wood & Energy Generation (Biomass)

The main part of our company's waste is wood or wood-based materials that we will utilise within our on-site incineration plant to satisfy and exceed our company's energy needs. We have plans to provide a service to the customers in our care by helping them to dispose of their worn-out furniture. We will shred or chip the waste materials within our own shredders to form the fuel for our plant.

Ambic Incineration Process

Surplus, non-reuseable wood will be burnt within our own wood chip-powered incinerator where the heat generated will heat water within a pressurised steam engine that will in turn drive a generator to produce electricity. After heating the water to produce steam and electricity the heat will be redirected to heat the air within our factory. The waste heat from the electricity-creating generator is surplus to immediate requirement and has the potential to be utilised in an alternate business. We have plans to develop an additional business that rears freshwater prawns and mussels in warmwater beds that could fully utilise this excess heat.

Dual Fuel

We would have excess wood disposal capacity within our incinerator so could provide a valuable wood-disposal service to our customers. To also include the ability to heat the steam engine using gas would ensure dual-fuel security to our heating requirements. This would ensure consistency of heat all year around and would complement the wood-burning side of the incineration process.

Minimise Landfill Dependency

The stringent management of our own incineration process will allow us to minimise our waste disposal requirement and that of our customers whilst limiting our dependency on fossil fuels and energy consumption. By reusing customer and Ambic surplus wood we will eradicate the need for those items to go into a landfill site.

Factory Dust Emissions & Insulation

Within our new factory all dust extraction systems will be regularly examined, tested and maintained. To improve heat loss and reduce dependency upon fossil fuels our proposed fully enclosed dust emission system will return clean, filtered air back into the factory. Captured, filtered dust and airborne particles will be burnt within the furnace with our recycled wood chip fuel. Stringent management of this system with clean air after-burners will control airborne emissions back into the environment. The insulation properties of our new factory will greatly reduce heat loss and our roof-opening ventilation will deliver a clean and effective factory environment.

Sound Attenuation & Noise Emissions

The external cladding of the building will provide acoustic attenuation to contain the noise emissions, and the closure of access/exit roller shutter doors has been designed to minimise breakout noise. The acoustic properties of the external building materials will provide up to 33dB(A) attenuation through the walls. Dust extraction equipment will be inside the acoustic shell of the building, and attenuated through enclosure to control employee exposure to noise.

Minimising Breakout Noise

The site is laid-out to minimize noise emissions from reversing alarms and this activity is limited to the time period 08.00 to 16.30. External doors are located facing away from the nearest noise sensitive receptors and are dampened with acoustic seals. The shell of the building will be lined with Rockwool acoustic insulation and all ventilation exhausts will be fitted with effective silencers and directed to avoid residential locations.

Green Meadow Site

The boundaries of our factory site will be populated with dense blackthorn bushes to act as a deterrent to intruders whilst providing a natural environment for species of bird and local wildlife. Designated picnic seating areas will provide staff relaxation areas for break and lunchtime enjoyment in a meadowland environment. Our new site will have covered bicycle racks to encourage our staff to cycle to and from work and so reduce their impact on the environment.

Saplings

We will convert depleted land within the boundaries of our factory site for the cultivation of oak and willow saplings. It is intended that these plants will be repopulated over time within the grounds of those schools that are our keenest customers.

Office Paper & Packaging

Ambic recognise that the much-hyped move towards a paperless office stemming from computer developments in the 1980s has not necessarily led to as great a reduction in paper-use within the office environment as was initially envisaged. As a company we are mindful of the amount of paper we use and aim to keep this to a minimum. Paper and packaging that has served its purpose and is no longer needed is collected for recycling at our local recycling centre.

Fossil Fuels

Ambic are committed to minimising its dependency upon and use of fossil fuels. Our planned factory and heat-generation plant will greatly minimise our dependency upon fossil fuels. In order to minimise our impact upon the environment we have stringent systems in place to manage the use of our company vehicles and to keep activity to a minimum. We are investigating the cost and sustainability of electric vehicles and are working towards establishing our own fleet of electric vehicles in the coming years.

Grey Water

Ambic are keen to conserve water by looking at methods that it can best utilise grey water from the roof of our new factory. Whilst procedures are presently underway to store grey water for the washing of company vehicles it is intended to install a large containment tank to facilitate the use of grey water for toilet flushing.