John Cotton

The Challenge

John Cotton is Europe’s leading manufacturer of pillows, duvets and mattress protectors, and the UK’s leading supplier of thermally and mechanically bonded nonwoven products to the mattress, upholstery, insulation, filtration and automotive industries. Its main site has extensive production facilities for the two different products and production processes are very energy-intensive. 

Due to the site’s high electricity and gas consumption, the cost of some energy taxes, such as the Climate Change Levy (CCL) historically reached around £200,000 a year. 

Trident has a wealth of experience assisting a large number of UK manufacturing companies to reduce the cost of this levy by implementing and managing Climate Change Agreements (CCAs). 

The main challenge was to manage the initial application to the Environment Agency to get a CCA in place. The CCA application process is quite complex, requiring the collation of a vast amount of information regarding consumption and manufacturing processes. 

John Cotton appointed us to help with the application, on-going management and retention of the CCA, including:

• Understanding the legislation and the requirements of the scheme.
• Simplifying the complex application process.
• Determining the specific energy consumption of eligible processes.
• Collecting the vast amount of energy consumption, process and production data required.
• Liaising with the relevant authorities.

The Solution

To retain a CCL rebate, accurate records of energy consumption and evidence of sufficient energy reduction must be regularly submitted to the relevant authorities.

We managed John Cotton’s CCA application from start to finish, mapping all the data required, maintaining clear communication with both the customer and the Environment Agency, and meeting the application deadline. John Cotton secured a CCA with BATE, which represents the energy-intensive textile sector, starting in 2007. Since then we’ve also helped the company manage this agreement, by: 

• Collecting monthly energy consumption and production data.
• Calculating monthly and annual Specific Energy Consumption (SEC).
• Providing quarterly summary reports detailing site performance against the energy target, CCL savings, and recommendations to improve performance.
• Dealing with the EA and the UK Fashion and Textile Federation to provide the relevant annual records and evidence packs.
• Providing advice to retain the CCA and therefore, CCL reductions.

The Benefits

Since John Cotton secured the CCA it has saved c. £1,400,000 in energy taxes. Additionally, the company has achieved the energy target for every single Target Period (TP), avoiding the payment of penalties by acquiring Carbon Allowances. The measures introduced to meet the CCA energy targets have helped reduce energy consumption, boosting efficiency and reducing energy spend still further.  

John Cotton’s partnership with Trident has now grown over almost 20 years, during which time we’ve provided several additional services to the company, including helping with ESOS phase 1 and 2 compliance.