Striving for a more sustainable industry

While PM Kevin Rudd might have walked away from his ETS and Tony Abbot is still dithering on what to do about carbon levels, the autobody repair industry can lead the way and show it is serious about the environment and sustainability and take the vehicle repairs into the future.

How sustainable is your workshop?  And how sustainable is the autobody repair industry overall?

From a shop to shop perspective, there would be a great variation on the number of sustainable work practices and how they are implemented.

As an industry, it would probably rank on the lower side of the scale when sustainability is put under the microscope.

So DuPont Performance Coatings and Australasian Paint & Panel have joined forces to look at ways to change that outlook and see more shops adopt a more sustainable approach to their business, work at ways to reduce their carbon footprint and become a little kinder to the environment.

We are looking for shops that have put in place practices to help reduce their impact on the environment while still delivering quality service and well finished vehicle repairs for their clients.

And the shop owner judged to have done the best job at addressing environmental and sustainability issues will be heading off to NACE in 2011.

DuPont Performance Coating’s marketing services manager, Steven Jakopovic,  said actions to reduce a body shop’s impact on the environment may be simple things like installing water collection tanks to catch rain fall from the workshop roof and use the water in the wash bay, to full recycling of water, a program to reduce electricity use, conversion to cleaner technologies like gas, recycling programs, or running energy efficient cars in the loan car fleet.

The awards will also look at dust extraction practices and aspects of workplace safety and comfort.

“There are all types of actions workshops of all sizes can take to reduce the effect on the environment,” Jakopovic said.

Jakopovic said through the DuPont Performance Services program, body shop owners will have the opportunity to benchmark their businesses regarding sustainability plus be provided with the knowledge of looking at different ways of practically increasing sustainability initiatives.

Water conservation is one area shops can capitalise on.

Heydon Harvey’s HHarvey Prestige on Queensland’s Gold Coast has a 70,000 litre water tank under the concrete pavement.

Water is piped and filtered right through the shop and the tank can be filled with just half an hour of rain.

Shop manager, Mark Slorach, said the water collected in the tank is used in the repair shop’s wash bays.

“When you wash 50 to 60 cars a week, it’s a huge saving on town water usage,” he said.

Similarly, Darren Jones of Canberra Body Works at Queanbeyan uses rain water in his wash bays. The workshop was built in 2008 and part of the building code meant Jones had to install water tanks.

The business collects water from about one third of the roof as well as the wash bay that is stored on a 45,000 litre above-ground tank adjacent to the workshop, and is used to wash the 30 or so cars a week that pass through the business.

As well as the rain water storage, Jones said the approved wash bay feature traps to collect waste liquid which is then pumped out and removed. They also have a hazardous waste container to collect oil, engine coolant and the residue from the painting process. Again, this waste is pumped out and taken away to be disposed of in an environmentally safe way.

These are just a couple of examples of autobody repair shops doing their bit to reduce their effects on the environment. In future editions of AP&P we will feature more examples of what businesses are currently doing to become more sustainable.

To be in the running to be named the DuPont Sustainability Awards 2010 winner, fill in the entry from in this issue of Paint & Panel and fax or mail it to us.

Entries close on 15 September and the winner will be announced in October during the presentation of the 2010 AAMI/Australasian Paint & Panel Autobody Repairer of the Year Awards in Melbourne.