A fter recently celebrating Earth Day and with growing concern around climate change and the impact we’re having on our planet, we wanted to explore some of the ways that businesses in the entertainment rental industry are practicing sustainability and reducing the carbon footprint on their jobs.
Our friends at SXS Events are just one of many rental companies who are ingraining sustainability into their business processes, culture, and offering. We caught up with Johnny Palmer, founder of SXS Events, to find out more about the processes that they’ve implemented and how they’re making their mark.
Warleigh Weir Project
Johnny founded the Warleigh Weir project based in Claverton near Bath. As well as trying to do more to reduce the environmental impact of the rental industry, the project is all about promoting the sustainable use of the countryside.
Events businesses produce a lot of waste through single use plastics, paint & wood. We want to change the way we behave as an events business, as well as do more to make up for that.
Johnny Palmer
Through this project, Johnny’s encouraging the public to come down to Warleigh Weir and swim, play football, and have picnics on the land (as long as all rubbish is taken away from the site, of course!). The non-profit organization have also been planting new trees in the hope that it’ll help them do a lot of carbon offsetting, as there are lots of carbons in the plastics that are used at SXS Events.
I feel the future of modern business is not just making money here and giving to charity there. I believe they can work hand in hand. I would love it if other businesses used their skills to run projects that are good for the planet and environment, making it a more sustainable world that we live in.
Johnny hopes that this project will be a positive example for many other event businesses who can use resources, contacts, and skills they have to do more for the planet.
SolCell
In addition to the Warleigh Weir project, the team at SXS Events are developing their SolCell product range. Providing sustainable energy solutions for the military, construction, live events, and commercial grade local generation, SolCell is being heavily used in the festival circuit this year - including a festival Johnny is hosting on his own island at Warleigh Weir.
We developed SolCell in-house here at SXS Events and it has a lot of use cases, but the core motivation is for our staff and us as a company to be at the forefront of sustainable energy. We want to provide a credible, scalable, ethical and sustainable suite of power solutions.
SolCell is made up of six products including:
RG7.0 Rack Generator
A complete hybrid power station and storage system in deployable package. Suitable for Backup / UPS applications in conjunction with grid or diesel generators. Suitable for “stand alone” use as sole energy production and storage system.
ER7.0 Expansion Rack
A battery expansion rack to increase the energy storage capacity of all SolCell products.
BG3.5 Block Generator
An all-conditions power station and storage system in a military-grade case suitable for the harshest environments and long-term outdoor exposure.
EB3.5 Expansion Block
A battery expansion rack suitable for extreme environments to increase the energy storage capacity of all SolCell products.
M1K SolCell Micro
A high portable power generation and storage system for demanding applications.
MB1.2 Mobile Battery Charger
A battery-powered battery-charger. For use in touring applications where mobile device batteries need to be charged in transit.
SolCell was recently donated to the Extinction Rebellion protests in London and successfully powered sound, backline, lighting, and video on Waterloo Bridge for over a week, completely off-grid and with zero-carbon.
Sustainability in the Warehouse
Alongside all this, the team at SXS Events are also practicing sustainability in their warehouse operations. They’re in the process of fully barcoding over 20,000 assets with custom QR codes, removing the need for paper during the prep process - a process that a number of our customers have successfully implemented, too.
The team haven’t stopped at barcodes, all delivery notes and rental agreements for dry hire customers are created and sent digitally too, making use of Current’s online approval and e-signature capture features. The customers sign each document on a tablet, with Current RMS delivering the signed copy to both the customer and SXS Events by email automatically.
All this is moving us towards a paperless process from prep to delivery, and without Current we wouldn’t have made this happen.
Joe Sandford-Hughes
A huge thanks to Johnny, Joe and the team at SXS Events for providing us with an insight into the invaluable actions they’re taking to adopt a greener approach.
How is your rental business putting new processes in place to practice sustainability? Let us know!