Sustainability milestone ISO 14001 opens new business opportunities for Big Bear Plastics

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One of the UK’s leading vacuum forming and compression moulding specialists has reinforced its sustainable manufacturing credentials by securing a ‘quality’ first.

Big Bear Plastics, which employs 80 people at its factory in Droitwich, has taken just six months to successfully complete its ISO 14001 audit, leveraging a recent 2 million pound investment drive in new equipment and modern ERP system. The company now has an Environmental Management System in place that conforms to the highest international standards, helping minimise its impact on the communities it operates in, whilst also opening new opportunities with domestic and global clients. This includes supplying parts to the off-highway, aerospace and defence sectors, not to mention early inroads into the energy generation/storage market. Together, this will support the firm’s drive to hit 10 million pound annual revenues by 2027.

“Achieving ISO 14001 accreditation for the first time in our 27-year history is a major milestone in our sustainability journey,” explained Daniel Gherghe, Quality Manager at Big Bear Plastics. “Gaining the standard is important for winning new business, but bigger than that is the good practice it instils in everyone that works here. Thanks to the comprehensive nature of the audit, we were able to directly identify a host of performance improvements, and this gave us the platform to formalise roles and responsibilities and, importantly, implement a more data-driven system for resource consumption.”

He continued: “Ethically, it's the right thing to do - it provides a framework to systematically reduce our environmental impact. Strategically, it brings immense business value, enhancing operational consistency and resilience, ensuring environment compliance and mitigates risk. It also strengthens our brand reputation as a responsible and forward-thinking manufacturing partner.”

Located in a 75,000 sq ft factory, Big Bear Plastics has evolved from vacuum forming and trimming of plastic parts to offering customers access to high quality compression moulding and waterjet cutting of lightweight interior trim products. The firm delivers a full-service solution from initial design, development and tooling to the manufacture of medium to high volume moulded parts up to 3.5m x 2.5m. It works with a wide range of thermoplastic materials, including ABS, PMMA-ABS, HDPE, HIPS, PC and PE in a variety of colours, finishes and thicknesses.

“Modernising our production floor through the installation of two new CNCs, a new robot and waterjet machine really accelerated our push towards the ISO 14001 accreditation,” added Managing Director Emma Hockley, who took over from her father Gerald in 2021. “The 2 million pound investment in new equipment, combined with the ERP system and new LED lighting throughout the site, has made us more efficient. It has also given us real time data to make informed decisions that has reduced our environmental footprint even further.”

She said: “Encouragingly, the standard has allowed us to pitch for new work that we weren’t previously eligible for.”

Big Bear Plastics is hoping to use ISO 14001 as a launchpad for future improvements, including exploring on-site renewable energy opportunities turning its attention to achieving ISO 45001, the health and safety quality standard, by the end of 2026.

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