Interview with Paul Taylor, Sustainability Manager, Camira Fabrics
Here’s an extract of an interview I did with Paul Taylor, Sustainability Manager of Camira Fabrics over the summer. Camira Fabrics is the biggest producer of commercial fabrics in the UK, producing 9 million metres of fabric per year, employing 600 people and turning over £70 million. Paul has since left the company, but there are some great nuggets of wisdom in here which we can all learn from.
How did you first get involved in sustainability?
You could say it started when I was five years old. I lived in Central London, surrounded by concrete, and I just felt claustrophobic. For one week a year we went to West Sussex to stay with a relative because the family couldn’t afford a holiday. But on the South Coast, when you are exposed for one week a year in the summer to coast line, marshes, sunsets, sky – it’s extraordinary the impact it has on you. Eventually I went off and studied environmental management and geomorphology – that was my passion to understand the world and to find a route where I could have a positive impact on it.
I started my professional life as a community development officer in Central London, because sustainability options weren’t open to me at that time. But those years taught me about how to have an impact on people and I decided that I had to find a career in sustainability. So it was apply for a job anywhere – pin on a map – and the first opportunity was at Middlesbrough Environment City. I had the opportunity to work on a project which was all about Agenda 21 and the world opened up. The path since has taken me through some dark days in the public sector, but nevertheless, it was a great, great experience. It was about realising you can’t just change the world from the bottom up, you have to have the policy from the top down as well – for a positive contribution you need to do both. And the path led me here, to Camira.
What’s the history of sustainability at Camira?
Camira has only been around since 1974. We started out as Camborne Fabrics, a textile supplier, and we began manufacturing here in Mirfield in 1987, and grew very quickly despite the perception that textiles production in the UK was declining. The big change happened when Camborne was bought by Interface in the late 1990s and became part of a company whose whole drive was around sustainability – and using sustainability to grow the business, not just as a bolt on. Camira was born in 2006 when there was a management buy-out from Interface. So we were born with a culture of sustainability, wholly owned by directors and investors who had seen what sustainability could do for a business. The turnover was £26m in 2006, now it’s £70m. And that’s been purely from a drive for sustainability- in terms of people understanding it, getting the processes right and the whole idea of leaving behind a better world than the one you found.
How do you induct new employees into the culture?
Well we have a new laboratory manager starting this week and on day 3 I have her for half a day informal discussion on sustainability. Every single new person who walks through the door gets that half day – and we learn from it too – what their previous experience of sustainability has been.
Did you have to introduce traceability of wool?
Camira have always driven traceability. It’s not enough just to use a 100% natural fibre – you have to understand the whole life of that fibre. New Zealand wool is a great product and it gets supplied all around the world, but we weren’t happy with the supply chain impacts such as how much water is used in scouring and where it was going. We work with our suppliers and improve their processes, which of course benefits all our competitors as well – they’re all buying from the same suppliers. Now many companies would wrestle with why we are putting resource into getting suppliers organic certification or an EU eco-label, but it is our moral duty to make every metre of fabric as good as it can possibly be. At the end of the day it is growing our business and growing it on the principles of sustainability so who cares if our competitors grow their business on the back of it too?
What are you most proud of?
There’s nothing more exciting than saying “We’re going to produce a fibre from a plant product, let’s go and do it and see what happens.” Then finding out it’s a beautiful product and saying “That’s not enough, let’s get a UK supplier” Then saying “That’s not enough, let’s grow it ourselves down the road.” where we have full-chain custody. And then saying “That’s not enough, what are we going to do about the waste, let’s make a brand new product such as heat logs from it.” This is what we have done with hemp. To find a company that never ever sits on something extraordinary, but keeps pushing and pushing to do the next exciting thing, that’s what makes you proud – and it really captures people’s imagination.
Is the story an important part of your products?
Yes. It’s all about the story. For us, the product works, but that project to grow it, farm in the right way and produce a product that sells, great. That’s incredible sustainability, but it is the story that captures people’s imagination. An architect will read that story and say “Jeez, we need this story when we are doing the most sustainable outfit in London.” The BBC want that story because they want to be seen to be supporting British industry that is doing it in the right way. Or that story attracts one person in one university who then comes and does a placement here. For example Harriet is our healthcare product manager here and she came here and worked for a year for nothing as she so wanted to be part of what we were doing when she heard the hemp story. The story has grown our business attracted one incredible individual. The story is everything.
We started with nettle fibre, and then moved onto hemp and it was amazing how the company got consumed with being creative. We made an approach to Starbucks as coffee sacks are made from jute, which is the same family of plants. We asked them if we could have them, which saved Starbucks money. We played around, shredding them, blending them with wool, and spinning yarn and we got a naturally flame resistant, 100% natural fibre, low cost material which we sold back to Starbucks for their seats. It was win-win for them, saving disposal cash and creating a seat cover with story. Of course there is an imbalance between their product of sacks and their need for material, but we are now launching the product to the wider market.
We like to drive the market – we won’t look for the issue to create the story. We produce the products to produce the story. We price our products according to the cost of manufacture, but they sell because of the story. Against the prevailing model, we manufacture in Britain and export to China!
How would you summarise the company’s approach to sustainability?
“Let’s try this” is how Camira approaches sustainability – we don’t overcomplicate it. Lots of things don’t work, but we have a tolerance of failure because there’s nothing like the occasional success to spark the minds of those who are paying the bills. In my last job I spent a lot of time putting postcards around light switches asking people to turn off the lights and eventually I thought “this is madness, it takes a huge amount of effort and will have very little impact.” It’s not wrong to do that, but does it have an impact? You won’t see any postcards around the light switches here. You won’t see a green newsletter at the end of the month.
I don’t have any energy champions. I have a maintenance manager who will come to me and say “I’m going to take the roof off the factory.” “Why? How much is that going to cost?” “A million and a half, I’m going to cover the lot in solar panels and rip out the whole lighting system and put in the best lighting system you can get in the UK, I’m going to insulate the whole roof.” That’s his idea of making change. Last year he saved 10% of our energy bill doing one project over Christmas. And now he’s thinking about what to do next.
The approach here has been ‘go big’ – it comes back to the culture because the culture here is ‘there’s no need to do all this tinkering around the edges’. We get it and everybody who comes into the business gets it.
3 Comments
Leave your reply.