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Don & Low
Market Sector
Nonwovens and geotextiles
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Don & Low is a long-established manufacturer of innovative, high performance technical textiles, which are used across a wide variety of industries including construction, agriculture, medical and passenger transportation.
Having carved out its reputation as a leader in this highly specialist field, the company has a keen appetite for innovation – holding 47 registered patents and trade marks – and understands this requires the flexibility to adapt and respond to ever-changing market conditions.
Textiles pioneer manages energy & carbon challenges on multiple fronts with Envantage
Operating in an energy-intensive industry, Don & Low is firmly committed to managing the risk that this brings to its operations from a financial and regulatory perspective, as well as embracing new approaches and technologies to meet its decarbonization goals.
The company began working with Envantage in 2008 and since then their working relationship has evolved in three key areas:
- Managing energy costs
- Meeting regulatory obligations
- Best practise in carbon reporting
Buying energy better
For high energy users like Don & Low, flexible energy procurement can deliver significant savings compared to fixed contracts.
Working closely with Don & Low’s finance director, Envantage’s in-house trading desk manages their energy purchasing on a daily basis. The company values having this expertise on hand to navigate through the fluctuating energy markets, as their FD explains:
“Envantage’s procurement team is specialist in risk-managed energy purchasing. Having started out managing our own flexible energy contract, we know that this is both complex and time-consuming. Working in partnership with Envantage means that we can focus on our core business activities, safe in the knowledge that they are taking care of our interests and shielding us from price spikes in the market.”
Brian Gladwin, senior account manager at Envantage, adds: “We understand the financial burden that energy presents for textiles manufacturers and being able to manage this cost is business critical. Our role is to ensure Don & Low’s operations run as efficiently as possible at the best possible price.”
Maximising regulatory and compensation schemes
As a high energy user, Don & Low is subject to a number of mandatory regulatory obligations, including ESOS (Energy Savings Opportunities Scheme), and were keen to work with Envantage.
The Envantage team takes a different approach and works with their clients to align regulatory requirements with their broader commercial and decarbonisation goals. Approaching it in this way helps to avoid a more costly and disjointed approach to carbon and energy challenges, especially when there is so much overlap between the aims and requirements of the various mandatory and voluntary regulatory schemes.
This ‘big picture’ approach has been key to the success of this working relationship, where the Envantage team has been able to bring together its capabilities across all areas of carbon and energy in a way that helps Don & Low to mitigate risk and increase the efficiency of its operations.
As well as identifying savings through ESOS by reducing energy usage, Envantage manages Don & Low’s Climate Change Agreement. The team has also supported Don & Low with their eligibility for the EII Exemption Scheme, achieving savings of more than £1.3 million in the past twelve months.
This joined-up perspective and breadth of expertise brings real advantages for Don & Low, as our client observes: “Envantage is all over the detail of the regulation and new schemes. They are definitely on the front foot when it comes to telling us about new developments and opportunities to save.”
The team for this project
Brian Gladwin
Senior Account Manager
Rachel Hulme
Carbon & Energy Consultant
Michael Holness
Senior Carbon & Energy Consultant
Christina Kontaxi
Carbon & Energy Administrator
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