Welcome from the president
April 20th 2007

Following his appointment as president of the British Compressed Air Society (BCAS) in November 2006, Rodney Stafford of HPC and past president Garage Equipment Association, the UK trade association for compressed air and vacuum gives his view of what he hopes to achieve for the industry over the next two years.

At a time when other trade associations are seeing membership falling, bcas has welcomed 34 new members during the past two years. This has in part been achieved by making the trade association more relevant to a wider range of compressed air related industries both at home and abroad. Changing our name from British Compressed Air Society to BCAS, reflects a growing proportion of our membership being international and multinational companies. It also allows companies in countries that do not have an active body representing the interests of their own compressed air industry to benefit from BCAS products and services.

We are starting to work more closely with sectors that recognise the essential nature of compressed air to their operations, a prime example being the production of a far reaching Code of Practice for Food Grade air with British Retail Consortium, which has been key in raising awareness in the food retail sector and beyond, of BCAS as an independent source of technical information.

To complement BCAS's expertise in the technical and standards arena, I will be looking to raise its profile as a leader for environmental issues and the impact of our industry. This encompasses the design and build of environmentally friendly products, their in-use energy consumption and eventual disposal. BCAS has already received in November 2006, a certificate of recognition from Carbon Trust for its project “Energy Surveys and Audits of compressed air systems“ where users can find energy auditors and information to get started in reviewing their own systems.

BCAS will provide services and information to members for helping guide the user of compressed air equipment in better design of systems, more training of the staff who use it, such that BCAS members will be recognised as providing a total environmental solution for their customers. Backed up by a new Member Code of Practice BCAS and its members will set the standard by which others will be measured.

For the Carbon Trust project, go to: www.compressedairaudits.org

For further information, just  click here.

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