MARCH 2020 THE INTERVIEW
Michael
McGowan’s work
on sustainability
saw him win
big at a recent
awards ceremony
100% of our sites to be engaged with
their local area and doing something in
the local community.
Is that ‘community’ aspect something
MM: that manufacturers need to get better at?
MMcG: The reality is, if you’re not engaging with
your customers or buyers, and the communities
they (and you) operate in, you will not be in
business in the next decade. It’s absolutely vital.
At Ibstock, we engage with many communities –
we have 21 factories across the UK.
Within those communities are our employees,
as well as subcontractors and contractors who are
local to the factory. If you’re not engaging with
them, they’ll end up ignoring you and you won’t
be in business.
MM: How important is it to consider
how your supply chain fi ts in with the
environmental aims of your factory?
MMcG: That’s another example of going
beyond the legislation. We’ve got the BES 6001
responsible sourcing standard, and we’re the only
brick manufacturer to have an ‘excellent’ rating
within that. The standard focuses on the supply
of raw materials, and what we’re proud of is
that, as a sustainable business, 98% of our raw
materials come from the UK, and 100% of our
products are manufactured in the UK.
MM: Ibstock is in a relatively privileged
position in that you have benefi tted
from a lot of backing internally for
sustainability projects. For increasingly
stretched SMEs, though, how important
should sustainability be?
MMcG: Small and mediumsized
companies make up the
vast majority of manufacturing
GDP across the country.
The main thing that may be
stopping them is the amount of
legislation that’s out there. For
example, and this will apply to
smaller businesses as well, at
Ibstock we’ve got over 60 pieces
of environmental legislation
to comply with. For a small
company, that’s just far too
much to keep on top of.
It’s similar to the problem
smaller companies have with
Industry 4.0, where they just
don’t have the time or expertise
to be implementing automated
production lines and the
like. There’s a mountain of
environmental red tape that
they’ve got to get through
and it can easily seem
overwhelming.
need is a government
with a proper strategy
that looks after small
businesses – they are the
lifeblood of any economy.
MM: Do you think that
What these companies
support will arrive?
MMcG At the moment, it
looks unlikely. Obviously, the
government is still relatively
new, but the legislation as it
stands is fragmented, with
diff erent departments managing
diff erent areas of legislative
requirements and they do
not get together to look at a
collaborative approach.
MM: For an SME that
may be just starting out
looking to improve their
sustainability, what are
some things that they
can do to make a real
di erence?
MMcG: It’s important to
engage with their end customer.
For instance, Ibstock is the end
customer of a small business,
and we have passively helped
them implement both informal
and formal environmental
systems. That company came
to us to ask what support
we could give them, so it’s
important for SMEs to engage
with businesses in their supply
chain to drive the fi rst steps
of their sustainability journey.
Talk, sit down and engage with
your peers. That will start to
build long–term, collaborative
partnerships that will see all
the parties working together
to solve issues.
MM: Are you seeing
sustainability come
up more and more in
discussions with both
customers and suppliers?
MMcG: We did a survey
of industry trends about
eight or nine years ago,
and sustainability was only
mentioned once or twice.
We’ve run it again recently and
found that the diff erence has
been unbelievable: it’s now
high on the agenda for most
companies. It’s a refl ection
of what we’re seeing in wider
society. For the fi rst time in
about 30 years, we’re really
seeing the sustainability agenda
gain traction and move forward.
It’s happened in the past but
never gained traction, and even
governments are starting to
stand up and look to make a
diff erence, which can only be a
good thing for the planet and
the long-term sustainability of
the industry.
The reality is that, long-term,
only sustainable businesses
– the ones that care about
people and their communities,
that reinvest back into their
manufacturing plants and
communities and that care for
the environment – will survive.
Everyone has to be working
towards net zero as part of that.
MM: What are the next
steps for Ibstock when it
comes to sustainability?
MMcG: We’ve been in
existence since the mid-1800s.
If we want to be in business for
another 200 years, we will only
do that by being sustainable – by
which I mean reinvesting money
back into the business and
local communities, developing
transformational projects that
change the business for the
future and working towards net
zero carbon and also making
sure that we take care of the
people and communities that
we operate in.
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