Owen Mumford Achieves the International Standard ISO14001: 2004

Date published: 08 December 2009

Owen Mumford, one of the UK’s leading manufacturers of medical devices, is pleased to announce it has been granted ISO 14001:2004 certification through SGS, an international organisation specialising in ISO management system assessment and registration.

The achievement of this award demonstrates Owen Mumford’s commitment to the environment and strengthens their “green credentials”. Gavin Jones, Financial Director, who has overseen the submission and auditing process, said he was delighted with the achievement explaining that the international award was of huge importance to a company like Owen Mumford, which exports over 80% of its total production overseas:

“As a global company, we are very aware of the environmental issues impacting upon our planet. The award demonstrates to our customers that we take our responsibility as a manufacturing business seriously.  Both Owen Mumford’s UK sites are located in areas of outstanding beauty and therefore respect for our local environment is something we are very mindful of.  All staff are being put through an intensive training programme to ensure everyone knows how to play their part in reducing waste and making all processes (from design to delivery) more energy efficient.”

“Gaining ISO14001:2004 certification effectively demonstrates that Owen Mumford is committed ethically to raising environmental standards through improving practices  to reflect our obligation towards a cleaner environment in Oxfordshire where we are based."

One way of reducing resource consumption requires Owen Mumford’s design teams to carry out environmental appraisals in advance of every new project, looking at each stage of the process to see if there are new ways to save energy and other resources.  Owen Mumford is committed to preserving natural resources through reducing water and energy consumption wherever possible. 

Gavin Jones said there are already visible differences on site with a range of skips being used for different types of waste and the introduction of a compactor machine has seen a 50% reduction in the number of skips being collected from the sites.

He explained: “Our carbon footprint is significantly lower now with fewer vehicle collections coming on site to remove waste.” 

Being a company involved in plastics injection moulding, Owen Mumford is mindful of the need to reduce consumption of this material and has actively sought ways to use plastic more efficiently as well as investigating ways to reuse or recycle waste plastic through developing partnerships with local companies.  Income generated from this will help finance new environmental initiatives ensuring commitment remains continuous and sustainable.