Environmental Street Furniture (ESF) is a family-owned company in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, who specialises in supplying high-quality street furniture and site furnishings in the UK and across the globe. Their three main areas of business include Solar, Themed and Urban furniture which fall into four different collections, including their Sustainable Collection, a modern, sustainable range from solar-powered charging stations, to 100% recycled plastic bins, seating and more.
After reviewing the company’s Green Growth scores, ESF scored particularly highly in the Green Growth pillar of ‘Customer Engagement’. By sharing examples of best practice, we aim to help all member businesses to become a more sustainable business.
We spoke to ESF’s founder and CEO, Alan Lowry, about the company’s progress towards Green Growth, with a particular emphasis on Customer Engagement. Read more in our interview with Alan below…
Our business is very much geared towards sustainability and recycling, and we have been developing a whole range of products to help others in this respect as well. I think that is probably why our customer engagement is so high.
We offer products made from 100% recycled plastic (in partnership with BPI) and this is using yoghurt cartons, milk cartons, carpet backing, plastic packaging etc and repurposing it into seats, planters, picnic tables and even decking. We have some programmes where we can educate schools by taking their recycling and using it to build furniture for them.
We also use a product called Resysta which is recycled rice husks used instead of timber. As all our products are outdoors, they have to be very robust and we test everything for a long time before launch. We use our customers to use and test products as well as to engage them in the process.
Our solar-powered products use solar energy to offer charging, lighting, WiFi, and AI reporting from our solar benches. Our solar power compacting bins carry up to 10X the litter through an internal compaction system and then uses a smart technology dashboard to report when bins need emptying to reduce the movement of vehicles and CO2 usage on the roads
Most of our customer engagements are carried out online through our monthly newsletter and also face-to-face at trade shows and exhibitions where we can engage directly with our customers to share these details. This year we attended ten trade shows globally to ensure we have the opportunity to share this important message.
Make sure your offering is 'legitimate' as there are many 'green wash' offerings being put out there that are damaging this agenda for those of us dedicated to ensuring its success.
Find out more about ESF in our members’ directory.
By Made in Britain 2 years ago | Environmental & Social Value