Innovation from Harlequin Oil Tanks Puts Clarehill Plastics on the Green Map

Innovation takes many forms; processes and innovative use of labelling systems are what has set this Northern Ireland SME apart from the crowd. Their success was so high it ranked alongside some international companies. Perhaps, best of all it has saved over £1.5million as a result of its program of efficiency improvements.


Clarehill Plastics Ltd has been recognised for its commitment to environmental engagement, in the Arena Network’s Northern Ireland Environmental Benchmarking Survey 2010.

The survey has been recognized as the principal measure of environmental activity and awareness, since it was launched in 1998. It looks at 200 companies, 26 local authorities, 5 health trusts and the education sector within the region. The survey examines a participant organization’s management of environmental issues, based on a number of sub-factors within 3 areas – environmental management, environmental performance, and assurance.

In addition to the completion of a self-assessment questionnaire by the applicant company, a verification visit is also required in some cases. Once this process has been completed, an independent review of all surveys is then carried out by Acona Ltd.

As part of their company survey, the company submitted a detailed report on its environmental policies and activities, scoring highly for its specific environmental management systems, its policies on ongoing staff training and its engagement with key stakeholder groups on environmental issues.

The tank business was also recognised for its commitment to environmental improvement as a result of its decision to incorporate OFTEC’s ERA (Environmental Risk Assessment) labelling scheme on all of its heating oil tanks. As part of this initiative, tanks are labelled on a scale of 1 to 10, dependent on a number of risk factors. In broad terms, a tank which scores 10 is considered to be a high risk option, whereas a tank with a score of 1 is considered a low risk option. This has promoted the use of bunded heating oil tanks within the industry, therefore greatly reducing the risk of environmental incidents.

Clarehill was also selected to receive an independent verification visit as part of their survey submission, whereby company representatives presented the various environmental policies and activities in place within the organisation, to a team of auditors. This entailed verification of statistics submitted by the company and feedback discussions between company staff and the independent audit team on strengths within the company and potential areas for further improvement.

Following submission of the 2010 survey, they achieved a Quintile 1 position - attaining an overall score of 83%. The Northern Ireland average for the year was 72% and the sector average was 70%. Speaking on the performance in the survey, Managing Director Brian McCann said:

“Environmental management has been at the heart of what we do here at Clarehill for some time. I am extremely pleased that, having compared what we do with Northern Irelands leading companies, this report has ranked us so highly. Indeed, all of us at Clarehill were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves in the same category as organisations such as DuPont (UK) Ltd, Marks & Spencer’s, BT and Sainsbury’s. We don’t just look at this as an exercise in benchmarking for its own sake however, but as a chance to look for opportunities to share best practice with leading companies and councils in Northern Ireland.”


For further information, please contact
+44 (0)28 9261 1077
[email protected]
www.harlequinplastics.co.uk