The Life of a Cabin: How We're Cutting Carbon from Cradle to Grave
Ahead of International Day of Climate Action on 24th October, we want to tell you the story of one of our cabins.
You've probably walked past one without noticing. Our cabins and enclosures protect critical equipment across rail, telecoms, fibre, data centres, switchgear and utilities. Every one of them has a carbon footprint, and that footprint starts long before it's installed and lasts long after.
At Tyrone Fabrication, we design with a cradle-to-grave approach. That means thinking about every stage of a product's life, from the materials that go into it to what happens when it's finally taken out of service. So, the best way to show what we're doing about our impact is to follow one cabin through its life.
It starts at the drawing board
Before a single sheet of metal is cut, the choices that shape a cabin's footprint are already being made. We design using materials that are easily recycled, so that what we build today doesn't become tomorrow's waste.
We can also tell customers exactly what that footprint is. On request, we can provide a lifecycle analysis of any of our products, setting out its carbon footprint from cradle to grave. For customers reporting on the emissions in their own supply chain, that's a figure they can use.
Made in County Tyrone
Once the design is signed off, the cabin moves onto our factory floor in County Tyrone. Part of the power that runs our machines comes from the solar panels on our own site. Every unit of electricity we buy from the grid comes from 100% renewable sources.
We're also using less of it. In 2022 the factory used 635,000 kWh of electricity. By 2025 that was down to 337,000 kWh, almost half. Our gas efficiency has improved by around 40% since its 2023 peak, and a resource tracking system now monitors what we use.
Those changes add up. Our carbon emissions peaked at 183.48 tCO2e (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent) in 2023. By 2025 they were down to 101.87 tCO2e, a 44% reduction.
We also track how much carbon goes into every tonne of product we fabricate. Between 2022 and 2024 that fell from 0.65 to 0.44 tCO2e per tonne, a 32% improvement in efficiency.
Nothing wasted
Cutting metal to shape always leaves something behind. On our factory floor, those offcuts never end up in a general bin. Scrap is separated into dedicated skips for copper, aluminium and stainless steel, then taken to a local scrap metal facility where all of it is recycled.
Cardboard and plastic get the same treatment. Both are baled on site and sent for recycling. Across the business, 100% of our waste is recycled and none of it goes to landfill.
Out on site
When the cabin is ready, it leaves the factory for installation. Here, customers have a choice. Alongside our standard installation, we offer a green installation, a lower-emission way to get their infrastructure in place.
The end, and a new beginning
Our cabins are built for a long lifespan, so the first thing we do for the planet is make sure they don't need replacing any time soon. But when the time does come for a cabin to be taken out of service, the decisions made at the drawing board pay off. Because it's built from materials that are easily recycled, it doesn't have to end its life as waste. It can go back into the supply chain and become something new.
That's what cradle to grave means to us: thinking about the end of a product's life from the very start.
The next chapter
Our story doesn't stop with one cabin. Tyrone Fabrication is ISO 14001 certified, and our Carbon Reduction Plan is written in line with the UK Government's PPN 06/21 requirements. It commits us to:
At least a 5% reduction in emissions every year
A 30% reduction by 2030, against our 2025 baseline
Net Zero by 2040
The next steps to get there include:
Supplying the factory with water from an on-site borewell
Upgrading fabrication equipment to make it more energy efficient
Introducing low emission and electric fleet vehicles
Improving insulation and heating controls
Working with our suppliers to reduce the emissions in our supply chain
For us, International Day of Climate Action is a chance to show work that goes on all year, in every cabin and enclosure we design, build and install. If reducing carbon is part of your next infrastructure project, get in touch with our team. We'd be happy to talk through how we can help you build it with a lower footprint.
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