Cummins Seeks Supplier Involvement With Environmental Initiative in the UK

Think you have what it takes to help Cummins improve the company's environmental impact?

Cummins has launched a new program that connects with the supply chain to help improve the company’s impact to the environment and reduce its carbon footprint.  Called the Environmental Gateway, it aims to discover innovative submissions from suppliers to Cummins’ UK facilities, whose goods and services can assist the company in achieving and surpassing environmental targets.  It will look to increase diverse supplier inclusion, increase innovation and reduce costs.

"A key part of Cummins' Mission is demanding that everything we do leads to a cleaner, healthier and safer environment," said Jim Johnson, Cummins Indirect Purchasing Sourcing Specialist. "We have set ourselves challenging targets to support this, and we recognize that our suppliers can help us meet them by sharing their experience and expertise to deliver the best possible impact."

Cummins has set targets by 2020 to reduce its global annual emissions by 3.5 million metric tons, reduce direct water use by 33 percent, increase recycling rates from 90 percent in 2015 to 95 percent, have 30 sites achieve “zero disposal” status and reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent and 27 percent, respectively, against a 2005 baseline.

“The Environmental Gateway project team has identified nine key areas of opportunity where the company feels that suppliers’ innovative solutions can assist with the key aims of the project,” continued Johnson.

Those nine areas are:

1. Searching for technology that allows Cummins to benchmark energy/water/waste data, both internally and externally
2. Investigate technologies that will reduce energy consumption on compressors
3. Investigate measures to reduce energy and water consumption of existing HVAC machinery and exploring alternative technologies
4. Move the packaging waste stream up the waste hierarchy to support Cummins zero to landfill initiative.
5. Increase the implementation of renewable energy technologies at Cummins to reduce Greenhouse Gas intensity
6. Reduce Energy Consumption on IT & Manufacturing Equipment without Affecting Productivity
7. Capture and reuse heat and electrical energy from our test cell operations
8. Seek innovations that reduce water consumption in welfare facilities
9. Any other goods and services that will assist Cummins

"In order to accelerate the adoption of innovations within the organization, Cummins are inviting small, medium, large and start-up businesses the opportunity to submit proposals," added Johnson. "The gateway will review all submissions with external partners to ensure transparency, selecting the top 15 applicants with the aim to trial them in Q4 2016."