Helen Hauck hosts a discussion with Andy Magrini from CAEM, a shelving manufacturer with operations in Italy, Australia, India and the UK.
“CAEM is a manufacturing group, we manufacture shop shelves that you normally see in grocery stores, supermarkets and DIY stores. We are trying to be greener, bringing in some initiatives to offset our Co2, reducing our plastic packaging and launching a new entrepreneurial activity to access the circular economy.”
The CAEM Group is owned and operated by the Magrini family, it was founded in 1958 by Rito Magrini. CAEM are determined to help their customers on their mission to become carbon neutral and are leading by example with an initiative to offset their carbon emissions globally.
“We calculated how many tonnes of Co2 we produced in our activities such as transport, raw materials and even taking into consideration the private lives of our employees. In 2019 we planted around 3500 trees and we plan on doing it year after year so we will have 10,000s in the future.”
In 2019 CONAI (a non-profit Italian consortium that polices packaging producers and ensures that they are achieving recycling and recovery targets) awarded CAEM with a National Environmental Award. CAEM was one of those businesses identified as making the biggest efforts in reducing the environmental impact of its externalities. This was achieved via the use of more recycled materials for its packaging process and innovative logistics technology.
“We went from thermo-wrapping plastic, which tends to be very thick to extensible wrapping plastic, that reduced our plastic consumption by more than 40%. Then we went further and rearranged the way we put our products onto stillages and pallets. For most of our clients, we now deliver without any packaging.”
The topic of the circular economy is very close to Andy’s heart.
“Every time we drink a can of pop, we should think that in the UK we only recycle about 50% of the container. That means that every bottle and every can we take from the supermarket shelf, 50% of the aluminum and plastic will come from Mother Earth again. So obviously there is only a limited number of years until we run out of the resources.”
The UK government has introduced the Resources and Waste Strategy for England, which sets out how they will drive the shift towards a circular economy. The target is to collect 77% of single-use plastic bottles placed on the market by weight by 2025, and 90% by 2029. CAEM are championing this initiative by developing reverse vending machines to enable their customers to support these ambitious targets.
“To do that effectively, retailers will have to have automatic means to collect these empty containers. This is normally done with a reverse vending machine, so we’re utilising our engineering knowledge to design and develop these machines to be available to our clients really soon.”
About CAEM Group
CAEM-Magrini S.p.A. was founded in 1958 by Rito Magrini. After the first sheet metal fabrication during the sixties, CAEM began to grow with the introduction of modern, efficient manufacturing and automated processes. Today the CAEM Group services the market with a manufacturing capacity 10 times higher than a decade ago with an extensive range of shopfitting products and services that the marketing team customises to provide a solution to a specific retailer’s needs.
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