Award-winning CJ Sheeran is an experienced manufacturer of timber packaging. Incorporated in 1994, and with a long history in the industry dating back to the 1960s, the company has been on a continuous mission to aid the planet and minimise its environmental impacts wherever possible. Group Compliance Manager Brian Fingleton discusses the company’s sustainable efforts, as well as the processes it aims to implement soon, in a report by Imogen Ward.
CJ Sheeran recently won the Pakman ‘ Business Recycling Champion’ award as part of its efforts to lead by example and maintain a sustainable operation. This joins the company’s collection of impressive accolades throughout its history.
“The Pakman award is a national environmental award that recognises excellence in recycling and waste management,” Group
Compliance Manager Brian Fingleton said. “It’s a brilliant accolade for the business; it’s also a great acknowledgement of the hard work and continuous efforts the CJ Sheeran team put in daily.”
Ireland’s leading manufacturer of timber packaging, CJ Sheeran, creates premium wood packaging timber products. With headquarters located in Mountrath, and a further seven sites dotted throughout the
Republic of Ireland, the company is perfectly situated to serve all its customers’ needs.
As the only pallet manufacturer in Ireland to possess separate manufacturing plants, CJ Sheeran is fully prepared for any eventuality.
Focusing on the planet, the company has worked hard to reduce its carbon footprint. As a result, it has been shortlisted for three categories in the 2022 Green Awards (The Excellence in Waste Management Award, The Sustainable Energy Achievement award and The Green Manufacturer Award).
Excellence in waste management
Recycling is an essential for this packaging manufacturer. Having set up a pallet recycling programme to help minimise consumer waste, the company successfully recycles 3 million pallets each year.
CJ Sheeran has a fleet of 80 trailers and would position them across Ireland to act as collection points at customer sites. These trailers are then brought back to the main recycling centre in Mountrath and sorted by a team of professionals into four categories: no repairs required, boards or block replacement required, dismantlement for reuse and irreparable.
All pallets in good condition, and those that were repaired by the company, are then stacked up by type ready for reuse. The dismantled pallets are used as part of the repair process for damaged pallets,
and the remaining stock of irreparable pieces are shredded. Residue and offcuts from the pallet recovery operations are shredded into woodchip, which can be used as biomass fuel and is WFQA certified.
Under the CJ Sheeran name is ComfyBed: the company’s brand of equine bedding.
Again, produced from offcuts and residue from the pallet manufacturing operations, ComfyBed is the official sponsor of RDS Dublin Horse Show and is used to bed some of the world’s best show jumping horses. This effectively highlights the premium quality of this recycled material.
Sustainable energy achievement
As part of the company’s valiant efforts towards energy sustainability, a biomass boiler was purchased to minimise CJ
Sheeran’s carbon footprint. The group now uses 4,000 tonnes of woodchip to generate the energy required for the 10 kilns to both heat treat and dry their pallets, carried out under the ISPM15 licence. These kilns are crucial to the operation: by heat-treating the wood, CJ Sheeran ensures quality control and optimum safety for clients.
“The company plans to be carbon neutral by 2025, or sooner,” Mr Fingleton said. “Our biomass boiler is helping us get to that stage; 62% of the energy used by CJ Sheeran is produced by our biomass boiler.
As a result, we successfully displace 1.5 million litres of kerosene every year, which equates to approximately 3,800 tonnes of carbon.
“Heat-treatment prevents wood-boring insects, which involves a process of bringing
the kilns to 56 degrees and then maintaining this temperature for a total of 30 minutes,” Mr Fingleton said. “The other important process is kiln-drying, which is used when customers require dry pallets for deliveries. The overall moisture content of a pallet after this process will be around 19% (depending on the client’s request) compared to pre-kilning.”
The company has an ISO 14001 Environmental Management System in place, making it the only pallet manufacturer to be certified with this. As part of its continuous improvement, the company was also accredited the ISO 50001 (energy management system) in April 2022. “We put systems and procedures in place to better understand the company’s energy consumption,” Mr Fingleton explained, “this also enabled us to measure our use and reduce it, which is better for the environment and much more cost effective.
“This not only helps us better understand our carbon footprint, but it has also encouraged us to have important conversations with our customers regarding our sustainability.”
Green manufacturer
There is only room for FSC approved suppliers at CJ Sheeran. Following its Green Procurement Process, the company only purchases timber from FSC approved suppliers. The company also prefers to partner with local suppliers where possible, which helps to reduce the carbon footprint of all CJ Sheeran’s operations.
This FSC approved timber is used in the production of all new pallets.
When manufacturing, there is a perfect balance of manual and automated production lines at the company. The automation lines at CJ Sheeran can make 80,000 standard sized pallets a week. With a flexibility to produce bespoke pallets and wood packaging products to meet a customer’s size requirements, the company makes these larger pallets manually, manufacturing around 4,500 a week.
Passion is prevalent in the individuals who make these products. The company operates an employee development and training programme under the brand name Talent Tree, giving workers the skill set needed to progress within the company.
“Here at CJ Sheeran there is a vibrant team who always maintain a can-do attitude,” Mr Fingleton said. “Our work is very customer-focused, and our training programme, Talent Tree, ensures employees have the best tools to provide excellent
customer service and care. We also provide access and support to programmes including the green belt and black belt training, apprenticeships and college courses too.”
With a new year comes the opportunity to implement new objectives. A major task CJ Sheeran is undertaking in 2023 is “implementing digitisation across the Group”. Mr Fingleton concluded, “we will be assessing our current capabilities and creating a future state map, where we
expect to deliver KPI dashboard screens, labour efficiencies derived from leaner systems, achieving savings on paper and data inputting which will make our company even more competitive.
“Ultimately, our goal is to continue expanding and the recent addition of our Coolrain and Cavan sites will aid this objective. Implementing digitisation is just another step towards achieving our company goal of carbon neutral by 2025 or sooner.” n
