Carbon Reduction – A 10 Year Plan

Cryoniss is committed to it’s carbon reduction plan and reducing its carbon footprint as reflected in the company quality objectives becoming carbon net neutral in the next 10 years, as outlined in its Sustainability policy and corporate quality objectives.

Ultra-Low Temperature freezers are one of the most energy intensive pieces of kit in bioscience, with an old freezer using as much electricity as a standard house a day (24 kW/ day).

To reduce this Cryoniss plans to replace its standalone freezers with Stirling Ultra Cold Units, which rely on piston-engine driven freezer technology instead of standard mechanical compressors and are 70-75% more energy efficient. These freezers also use no oil and have 20% less refrigerant requirements. In addition, said refrigerants are EPA SNAP-approved 100% natural. This means that it has 1/10,000 the global warming potential of standard units. The freezers are made with a zero-waste production process, and environmentally friendly insulation.

Cryoniss’ freezers are serviced twice yearly to ensure they are running at optimum condition. Alongside this, a holistic expansion plan is in place with the science park landlords to implement a purpose designed SHE compliant air handling system to minimise the use of HVAC requirements to keep the facilities cool. Likewise, as we move forward future facilities will be engineered to ensure heat generated from the freezers will be transferred to and used across the bioscience centre in line with the Heath Park vision.

Alongside this, The Heath park is also trialling hydrogen technology, which will further support Cryoniss’ efforts SOG’s aim at The Heath is to create a Net Zero Carbon environment in advance of regional and national targets, with the Park powered by 100 per cent renewable energy. HyNet, the hydrogen production initiative, means Heath Park will have direct access to hydrogen power by 2026.

Cryoniss’ courier service is planning to expand using electric vehicles which are considered ideal for transporting goods between our two sites and therefore also between LHL and our Runcorn site, a distance of 29 miles, with standard petrol fuelled vehicles used for back-up services only.

Cryoniss’ Environmental and Waste Management policy covers Cryoniss’ commitments to reduction in waste generation, reuse and recycling wherever possible. Compliant waste streams are in place to ensure samples are sterilised 100% prior to being dispatched by compliant waste courier for disposal via incineration. Full chain-of-custody documentation and Certificates of Destruction are provided for samples.

For sample collections, shipping packaging would be reusable, and undergo a decontamination step prior to reuse. Please note, prior to issuing any shipments, all packaging containers under a visual inspection and sign off to ensure their integrity.

At the Heath site, SOG’s ‘green initiatives’ include:

Recycling of waste – office waste, paper waste, scrap metal, oil, food, garden, glass, electrical, hazardous waste and toner cartridges

Energy management – upgrade of building management system, installation of water meters and energy efficient boilers, movement sensor light switches, high-efficiency variable speed motors to reduce electrical consumption

As part of The Heath’s 2030 strategy demolition of older less-efficient buildings and infrastructure – with 96.5% of materials being recycled in recent project

Cryoniss aims to minimise waste generation at source and facilitate repair, reuse and recycling wherever possible and financially feasible. They provide clearly defined roles and responsibilities to identify and co-ordinate each activity within the waste management chain and promote environmental awareness in order to increase and encourage waste minimisation, reuse and recycling.

Company Information

Cryoniss is a private limited company specialising in biological sample storage and logistics, registered at Mereside, Alderley Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England, SK10 4TG.

Reporting Period

This report is produced for 2021. A report will be completed yearly to manage our emission targets.

Change in Emissions

As a growing company gaining more Staff, we estimate that our output of green house gasses will have increased, but as services are also used more efficiency will have improved and emissions per unit of storage capacity will have increased.

Approach

We have followed government guidelines on how to measure and report greenhouse gas emissions. Converting consumption into an equivalent amount of CO2 produced in Kg.

Operational Scopes

We have measured our Scope 1, 2 and estimated significant scope 3 emissions.

Base Year

We will use 2021 as our base year to compare our future emissions and targets for reducing our greenhouse gas emissions.

Targets

Our targets for reducing our greenhouse emissions is 10% yearly on unit of output. Our long term goal is to be carbon neutral by 2031.

Sonia Houghton, Chief Executive Officer and Philip Hargreaves, Chief Operating Officer are responsible for achieving this target.

As well as reducing our emissions we aim to improve our measurement of emissions produced in all operational scopes.

Intensity Measurement

As a storage company we have chosen a unit of storage capacity as a common metric in comparing our yearly greenhouse gas emissions as our business grows.

Sonia Houghton