Member Article

Lanchester Group makes environmental pledge

An environmentally-minded business based in County Durham has pledged to lower its carbon output to become the world’s greenest liquor company.

Lanchester Group, which is made up of three different firms called Lanchester Wines, Lanchester Gifts and Greencroft Bottling, has said that it will become a carbon-negative company.

Measures to achieve this goal have already been introduced, with a temperature control heat pump in the company’s Annfield Plain offices, and solar panels to combat high electricity bills.

Two new wind turbines are set to be installed on a hilltop site close to Lanchester’s secure site, to potentially generate around 4 million kWh.

The firm’s managing director of the new Lanchester Energy Company, Adam Black, said: “I always wanted to be involved in alternative energy and I had pretty much done as much as possible on my own house, in Stocksfield.”

“I had put in solar, heat pump, solar panels and a small wind turbine and decided to start my own energy company.”

The firm will spend £2.8m on the first two turbines, which will be installed before June 2013, while a third will be installed later in the year.

Electrical charging points have been installed at the Annfield Plain base, which allow the firm to use the sites own generators, and Lanchester Group also has plans to implements its first Tetra Pak wine filling line.

The group’s managing director, Tony Cleary, added: “Our aim is to use sustainable Fair Trade wine and we’ll be able to fit 33,000 Tetra Paks on one truck, compared with 22,000 bottles, so for every million litres of wine you can take 65 trucks off the road.

“Ultimately, our goal is to be the greenest liquor company in the world and this should be a reality in early 2013.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .