DarkFrame Ltd

Our Environmental & Sustainability Policy - Updated, January 2025
0

DarkFrame Limited is committed to leading the industry in minimising the impact of its activities on the environment, and demonstrating this in its operations. Regardless of size, all businesses have a responsibility to protect the Earth, especially so since we are all Astronomers.

We are proud to have previously partnered with Carbon Neutral Britain to offset our carbon footprint, and planted over 750 trees in sustainable projects around the world.

www.carbonneutralbritain.org

We are currently exploring support for new local environment projects.

The key points of this strategy to achieve our aims are:
0

Minimise waste by evaluating operations and ensuring they are as efficient as possible as a constant process.

Minimise toxic emissions through the selection and use of its courier services and the source of their power requirements and policy. Our commitment to this is we actively group our courier and company collections/deliveries to twice a week since November 2021, to help minimise CO2 and particulate emissions by 60% from our front door. It's a simple change more businesses could adopt wherever possible.

We use low energy ultrasonic cleaning equipment to eliminate the need for more harmful de-greasing practices, as well as 'quiet' compressed air. Our total waste stream is less 1 kg per month. Our temperature controlled and insulated workshop, reduces energy cost, and is a requirement for the engineering tolerances we work to. Noise pollution, has also been minimised with use of a custom air compressor enclosure to substantially reduce Db(A) pressure for enhanced workplace safety. The Air compressors are now deemed 'silent'. It's now so quiet, it's as loud as a dishwasher when recharging the tanks!

We actively promote recycling both internally and amongst its customers and suppliers. We been recycling over 95% of our packaging used from suppliers since 2016. 100% of our bubblewrap is 100% recyclable. Our ThreeWay Courier Service uses the same packaging box up to three times, which further reduces waste. Our average annual consumption for packaging has been less than 120 kilos, since 2016 to date.

We refurbish and recycle any serviceable mount components wherever possible, to reduce cost as well as the environmental impact. Office equipment uses recycled consumables wherever possible. Waste paper is shredded and composted when required.

Source and promote a product range to minimise the environmental impact of both production and distribution, as part of our refurbishment process. We use longer lasting, higher quality replacement components, which extends the life span of our products, wherever applicable. Presently, our engineered refurbishment cycle is 5-7 years, meaning an equatorial mount could last decades, if properly serviced. This saves landfill, as many castings cannot be re-cycled due to the material used.

We meet or exceed all the environmental legislation that relates to the Company, in terms of low impact within the local community in terms of noise abatement, light pollution and waste disposal which is already very low impact. The production work-flows we devised also minimise their use to reduce energy cost and to mitigate noise generation.

In fact, we have 360º mapped the operational noise to a maximum of just 3dB (at 15m distance) above outside ambient levels during the day, at circa 43 dB(A) averaged for a maximum duration 150 seconds at a few specific frequencies. Overall, any noise polution is effectively undetectable from 20 metres without audio measuring equipment, due to the improved building sealing. Unless you're trespassing, you won't hear anything.

We use an accredited program to offset the greenhouse gas emissions generated by our activities which is reviewed twice a year. We currently use ScottishPower which actively invests in renewable energy. We have further reduced our energy consumption by two-thirds during 2022.

Our workshop building is fully insulated and climate controlled, to reduce our CO2 footprint in heating costs and energy loss. Our Co2e heating output is about one kilograme per day, during the cold winter months, or about 90-120 kilos annually. This temperature managment also helps us achieve the control the tolerances needed for accuracy of our re-manufactured mounts.

We use low energy LED lighting (some dual 240v/12v for backup), and single phase machinery that is both energy efficient, to reduce energy consumption.

We also introduced in 2019, 12v solar power for charging batteries and power-packs for our 5v/12v hand tools. This feeds into our workshop for lighting backup to reduce operating costs even further. We now have installed ceramic radiators, that reduce energy electricity consumption by 10%. The next stage will be expanding this energy micro-generation via PV Panels to our existing 240v ring main, to allow the main workshop to be partially off-grid by end of 2025, starting with main lighting.

Our mount rebuilds ensure a longer lifespan of telescope mounts which are made from cast and machined metals. This means that by our calculations, we are extending the need to recycle mounts, or create new ones, thereby saving an extra Co2e cost to the environment by some 280-360 metric tonnes per annum.

As a UK based SME and based over the past two years of data, our operations are effectively already closing on towards NetZero. Our total current Co2e footprint per annum is circa 4.2 Tonnes for energy, and vehicle use. With PV micro power generation, and forthcoming changes to EV technology we predict we should achieve this by 2028-2030.

We constantly review the above policy, which helps define and hone our business operation. By integrating our methodologies of working and by respecting the planets resources, we can contribute in our own small way to a better, more sustainable future.

David Woods
Director

DarkFrame Limited (est. 2008)

Modal Dialog Title