EFL 3PL harnesses the Earth’s main energy source

27 February 2020 10:38 am Views - 319

Standing from left to right:
Leroy Ebert - Chief Growth Officer, EFL 3PL & Freeport, Sabrina Yusoof - Global Lead, Sustainability, EFL, Nishan Hewagamage - General Manger - Operations, EFL 3PL & Freeport, Sammy Akbar - Director, EFL 3PL & Freeport, Suneth Hirimuthugoda - Head of Strategic Business Unit, EFL 3PL

EFL 3PL, the logistics and 3PL arm of Expolanka PLC, successfully expanded the capacity of its solar powered facility at Orugodawatta, in line with the company’s Global Goodness initiative. The capacity of the Fulfillment Center at Orugodawatta was further expanded with the installation of 225 additional solar panels, bringing the total number of solar panels to 2,551, which will help generate in excess of 100,000 kilowatt hours of energy per month. This initiative is tipped to utilize renewable energy to meet up to 80% of the energy requirement. The Fulfillment Center is fully temperature and humidity controlled, thereby the demand for energy is way higher than a conventional warehouse which consist of a mere four walls and a roof. This Fulfillment Center is the largest state-of-the-art finished good facility in the island which utilizes RFID for cargo and employee administration, Internet of Things (IoT), on premise servers, charging facilities for the material handling equipment as well as complementary charging ports for EV’s (electrical vehicles) and PHEV’s (plug in hybrid electrical vehicles) of staff and clients, thereby incentivizing them to go green. 

Sammy Akbar, Director – EFL 3PL & Freeport comments, “Consciousness is a key value that we as a corporate uphold wholeheartedly. We continuously want to keep raising the bar in the area of sustainability, not merely because it’s a brand value instead because it’s the right thing to do. If we don’t do something now, we might run out of time. The significant addition to our solar power capacity reflects our ongoing commitment to green our carbon footprint while fulfilling our promise to customers to provide sustainable logistics solutions.”

Adding further, Sabrina Yusoof - Global Lead - Sustainability of EFL says, “Our commitment to building a sustainable business is driven through our Global Goodness initiative, and is designed to align our key business practices to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. By investing further in renewable energy sources, we are enhancing our supply chain into more sustainable one, which is critical to our business agenda.” 

EFL 3PL’s solar powered facility supports the logistics provider’s bid to instill sustainable practices in both environmental and operational activities. This is also the first LEED Gold Accredited facility of its kind and follows an ISO 14064:2006 certification which the company obtained for developing a framework to quantify and report on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. 

EFL 3PL is committed to the environment and sustainable business practices. This is evident with the extensive projects they have undertaken over the years such as the Bundala reforestation project and in the certificates that they have received such as the Green Freight Asia Certification and ISO 14001:2015 Environmental Management Systems.