Manufacturing With A Conscience

Osborne Refrigerators have a long history of manufacturing with an environmental conscience. We have always used polystyrene insulation which is efficient and recyclable, rather than more damaging polyurethane or similar materials and each refrigerators we produce is designed so that it can be easily recycled at the eventual end of it’s life. We also design for a long life - some of the oldest refrigerators still working around the world are Osborne refrigerators. We were the first British manufacturer to move our entire production away from CFC based refrigerants and we now use R600a, a refrigerant with zero ozone depletion (ODP) and low global warming potential (GWP). Our R&D Department are constantly looking at the latest technologies available for the refrigeration, the insulation and other components such as lighting.

British Designed & Built

Lots of companies claim to be British and many of them may indeed still design and distribute in the UK. Osborne Refrigerators still manufacture exclusively in the UK because we believe it is the socially and environmentally responsible thing to do. By maintaining our manufacturing in modern and efficient facilities here in the UK, we avoid the environmental damage caused by inefficient third world factories and the pollution caused by shipping products in from thousands of miles away. Did you know that a refrigerator shipped from China has produced over 80% of it's own weight in CO₂ before it even reaches a UK port?

Shrinking Your Carbon Footprint - New Energy Efficient Specifications

As part of our ongoing programme of product development, we are introducing changes to the specifications of many of our chillers. The changes are all designed to lower energy consumption so that you can reduce your carbon footprint. The biggest changes are to our traditional range of undercounter chillers. The new eCold range that will be replacing them over the next few months feature a host of improvements that could practically halve energy consumption with no loss in performance. These include:

 - LED lighting. This is doubly efficient. Firstly, it uses much less energy than traditional flourescent tubes to produce the same level of lighting. Secondly, it produces virtually no heat which removes an extra workload from the refrigeration system.

 - Low voltage, high efficiency fans. These use less power than those previously fitted and, like the LEDs, produce virtually no waste heat.

 - Improved insulation and redesigned doors. Cuts down heat transfer from the ambient surroundings and from the cabinet's own refrigeration system.

 - Maintenance-free condenser system. This offers the best of both worlds; fan assisted air circulation which provides cooling for both the condenser and the compressor and a condenser that never requires cleaning.

Many of these new features are also being rolled out across a wider range of cabinets later in the year, ensuring that all Osborne cabinets are as energy-efficient as possible.

Shrinking Our Own Carbon Footprint

In addition to limiting the impact our products have on the environment, we have worked hard to limit the impact of production itself. Our new offices, for example, were designed to make best use of natural light, cutting the lighting usage alone by some 80%. We also maintain over 100 acres of West Sussex woodland which more than offsets all our CO₂ emissions from both manufacturing and distribution.

Green Reasons To Buy An Osborne Cabinet