Sustainability is a big concept – but helping organisations to get there one step at a time is something we at the Chamber are absolutely committed to.
And it’s member businesses like Sommers Waste Solutions (SWS) that make this journey possible – through innovation, education, and services that are flexible enough to accommodate every customer’s differing needs.
Indeed, SWS’s customers include every type of organisation from the humble corner shop to multi-national corporations like Yo Sushi, and when we met with Sales and Marketing Director James Sommers recently, we found an interesting backstory behind the business’s path to growth.
From niche to national – in 15 years
SWS began around 2008, when James’s brother Mark, now Managing Director, spotted a gap in the market for a specialist management capability around anaerobic waste digestion.
This is a controlled natural process that turns organic matter such as waste food into biogas, which can then be used both as an energy source in itself, and to generate electricity.
The idea took off, but at the same time it opened up much wider possibilities around other forms of sustainable and environmentally regulated waste, including recycling, clinical, hazardous, and electronic, amongst others.
Today, this Luton-based team of 11 is a waste management broker for every imaginable item and form of material discarded by commercial and public sector organisations alike - from Scotland to the South-West of England.
And it achieves this without a single lorry of its own, instead coordinating carefully selected regional and local waste management companies to deliver services to SWS’s own high standards.
“One phone number to call, one named contact to deal with, one invoice to pay – we make it simple for our customers.” James explains. “And for that reason, we have a loyal, long-term client base, and enjoy a lot of repeat business.”
Taking customer sustainability further
But SWS adds value to organisations’ sustainability efforts beyond merely disposing of their waste responsibly.
It also audits their internal waste processes and streams to identify opportunities to, as James puts it, “generate as little waste as possible in the first place and recycle as much as possible thereafter.”
SWS can even equip organisations with an online monitoring tool to show the quantity of waste they generate, and its effect on their carbon footprint, giving them a benchmark by which to measure carbon reduction.
And food waste continues to play a major role in SWS’s strategy, driven in part by changes to legislation coming into force in April 2025, which will require many businesses to provide for separate waste management of the food waste they produce.
The company’s Eat Green initiative, in which we at the Chamber are involved, provides education and guidance around this topic, and James’s team also visits local schools to promote both the reduction of food waste and the benefits of anaerobic digestion in its disposal.
A proud Chamber member – and winner!
So significant, in fact, has been SWS’s contribution to enabling organisations in the region and further afield to meet their sustainability targets, that the company was voted Gold Winner in the Action Zero Sustainability Award category of the 2024 SME Bedfordshire Business Awards.
“Winning felt amazing for us,” James says. “We work hard to make a difference, and the Awards felt like a recognition and vindication of all the effort and challenges of the last 15 years.”
And when it comes to the company’s Chamber membership, James could hardly speak more highly of it. “The Beds Chamber people are brilliant,” he enthuses. “We’re so glad we joined – we’ve benefited from networking, won business, hosted an event ourselves, and of course increased our profile through the Awards.”
“We’ll be signing up for membership again – no question!”
For more information on how to join Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, visit www.chamber-business.com, or call our friendly team on 01582 522448.
