Witham Group’s Environmental Objectives for 2025

Witham Group has been trading since 1921 and is a leading independent manufacturer of lubricants and supplier of paint and coatings throughout the UK. It is a privately owned, family run business with its head office and lubricant manufacturing site based in Lincoln and a distribution centre, trade shop and decorating centre based in Soham.

Over the past century, we are proud to have grown a rich heritage and strong reputation built on quality, looking after our customers, our people and the environment.

Despite the huge range of products being manufactured and supplied by us, our aim is always to operate within a climate of excellence, not only in terms of service and procedures for customers, but also for systems of product manufacture, the welfare, health and safety of all of our employees and those affected by our activities. We aim to operate with corporate care and social responsibility.

In an industry where traditionally additives, chemicals and fossil-based products are essential to the manufacturing process, we have challenged ourselves to ensure, wherever possible, the environment is at the heart of our activities. We are working extremely hard to create a “greener culture” within our business. Included in this policy is a summary of what we have achieved and are continuing to improve on throughout the Group.

In order to achieve this, the business recognises that promoting sustainability and protection of the Environment and the avoidance of pollution, is of the utmost importance, not only for the here and now but for the future of everyone. Several years ago, Witham Group challenged ourselves to review our industry’s traditional practices and develop innovative change that is making a real difference.

We have updated our Environmental Policy, with its goals, aims and objectives, to reflect our determination to ensure that wherever practically possible, our activities including purchasing, manufacturing, distribution, energy use, waste generation and disposal, will minimise the effect on the environment. At all levels, and within all functions of the Group, we are committed to continual improvement of our management systems and enhancement of our environmental performance.

Reviewed at regular intervals and on the agenda at board level throughout the business, we strive to continually improve all areas of our activities and the impact we have on the environment. We will always comply with relevant environmental legislation and industry codes of practice as well as any other compliance obligations, as a minimum level of performance.

Here are our Specific Environmental and Sustainable objectives for the year ahead:

1: CARBON FOOTPRINT MEASURING

To manage and understand the carbon footprint of our business, we aim to complete a full and approved methodology review of the products that we manufacture and what impact they have. Using the verified and approved methodology of the Union of European Lubricants Industry, we will complete this assessment of our Products during 2025 and then form a carbon reduction strategy further. We have already taken huge steps in reducing our carbon usage as a business with our innovative blending process which uses solar panels and ultrasound technology as opposed to the industry tradition of fossil fuel energy.

2: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT

We are going to create a new supply chain management system to improve records of our suppliers, the risk if any they pose to us and to ensure we check their own environmental, social and corporate responsibilities to ensure we are only using companies with the highest standards going forward.

3: WASTE MANAGEMENT

We are going to collect all the data about our waste volumes and types of waste we create and also measure whether this is rising or falling over time, as well as find out from our waste suppliers how much is being recycled and how much more can be.

4: RECYCLING

We will review our recycling activities and see how they are improving. From packaging materials to barrels, we are increasing the levels of recycled materials in cardboard boxes and plastic containers and using better packaging systems like HIVE, reducing or eliminating plastic wherever possible.

5: WATER USAGE

We aim to report on a rolling years basis on the amount of water we use collecting data from our water bills and set up a spreadsheet/dashboard to also show how much rain water we are collecting to save water for washing vehicles. The vision is to reduce water consumption as much as possible over the years ahead.

These 5 objectives for 2025 are just some specific areas we want to improve over the year ahead, our many other environmental improvements will continue to be developed at every opportunity.