Environmental Sustainability in the Field Service Industry

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With Earth Day having just been for another year, I thought it was topical to looking into environmental sustainability in the field service industry.

What Negative Impacts are Common in our Industry?

By our very nature, field services businesses like Mobile Test ‘n’ Cal require many vehicles, significant petrol or diesel usage, and from time-to-time, airfares for remote work. On top of that, performing electrical calibrations and high voltage testing like Mobile Test ‘n’ Cal does, is quite a power intensive service. So as a business (and business owner) that is passionate about sustainability, but also a field service business, how can we mitigate the somewhat unavoidable carbon footprint of our field service operations?

How Do We Offset our Negative Impact?

Mobile Test ‘n’ Cal has developed a few ways to minimise our negative impact, just some of which are listed below:

  • Our premises are solar powered with suitable battery storage to store power generated during non-working hours
  • We use Electric Vehicles (EV) where possible in the business (currently only for non-commercial vehicles due to market availability of suitable options).
  • When EVs are not possible, we use modern clean diesel (ideally with emissions-reducing functions such as auto-off at idle)
  • We use GPS tracking with driving style monitoring functionality. This allows tracking of excessive emissions causing driving habits (fast take-offs, late braking, excessive idling etc) and allows coaching to improve this.
  • We use GPS tracking with fuel usage integration, to monitor consumption and emissions. This is then used to calculate CO2 usage for any given period, allowing this to be offset.
  • We minimise driving by intelligent scheduling. This means reducing back and forth and reducing overlap of technicians for each area. Each job shall be serviced with the minimum possible driving.
  • No single-use plastic is purchased or used by the business unless absolutely unavoidable and. of course, is recycled if used.
  • We have a no paper policy in the business unless absolutely unavoidable or on customer request.
  • We purchase recycled paper, recycled toilet paper and any other recycled products as needed.
  • We use rechargeable / reusable batteries whenever possible. If single-use batteries must be used, they are collected and be recycled.
  • We recycle printer and toner cartridge on the rare occasion that they must be used.
  • We minimise flying by only doing so when absolutely necessary for operational requirements. When flying is necessary, the carbon offset option shall be purchased.

How can we do Better?

We are continually looking for ways to improve this and to keep minimising our impact. If your organisation has any strong initiatives in this field I’d love to hear about them! If we all work together to share ideas, we can work towards minimising our footprint as an entire industry.

Happy Earth Day!

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