Sustainability takes root at Gloucestershire garden centre
Growing, displaying, and maintaining plants is an energy-hungry business. Director and General Manager of Highfield Garden World, Tim Armstrong, is well aware of the impact on the family business he loves – and equally aware of the potential of his sector to do something about it.
Established in 1920 this popular independent garden centre has been in its current location, at Whitminster, Gloucestershire, since the 1990s, and has gradually added new buildings over the years. The Greenway family is passionate about adopting and investing in green initiatives and always on the lookout for more sustainable ways to run the business. They capture rainwater for the plants, drive electric vehicles where possible, recycle all their cardboard and plastic and give coffee grinds free to customers for their gardens.
‘As a garden centre we’re aware of the need to maintain our environmental standing with customers,’ explains Tim. ‘We always encourage people to do things the right way and we want to maintain those standards ourselves.’
But even with this strong track record, Tim had an idea they could do more – and with rapidly rising energy prices the bottom line demanded they try. After some research, he contacted Severn Wye to see if the EU-funded Target 2030 scheme could help them take advantage of the energy-generating potential of the premises’ extensive roofs.
The business took advantage of a £49,500 grant to supplement their own investment of £283,000 to install a substantial solar PV array with potential just shy of 300kWp. They’ve taken full advantage of the mobile app to monitor their generation and energy use in real time. ‘For us the app is one of the biggest advantages – being able to see what energy is coming from our solar and what we’re consuming from the grid,’ Tim enthuses. ‘It’s really interesting. We’re more aware of how we use energy at certain times, so for example we don’t just turn all the lights on first thing in the morning before customers arrive.’
Energy use is now also a regular feature on the management agenda too, especially with increasing costs. The business is very aware of managing its consumption, even if they’re paying less.
‘When the sun shines and the system is fully running we’re pushing electric back to the grid,’ says Tim. ‘It’s very satisfying.’
Severn Wye then helped them secure a further grant to install LED batons throughout, a huge aesthetic as well as efficiency improvement. Overall the family’s long-term investments, supported by the Target 2030 funding, will reap them impressive savings of around £900,000 over the lifetime of the installations.
Tim enrolled his solar installer to speak at the next AGM of their buying group, to persuade other garden centres to use their own roofs to help them be smarter and greener. ‘It’s an absolute no-brainer. All these apex roofs are perfect for panels – but we’ve even had some curved structures we’ve put panels on.’
‘Once everything’s working fully we’d look at further measures,’ Tim confirms, ‘but we’re absolutely delighted with what we’ve achieved so far.’
