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About Environmental Street Furniture
The Environmental Street Furniture Company was founded in 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, as part of a lighting company
offering associated exterior products. The company enjoyed success mostly in NI and the west coast of Scotland throughout its first 10 years and achieved some notable successes. In 1999 the company was acquired by WTB Group and established as a subsidiary of WE Bullick which later became Burdens, Newtownabbey.
Early Days – Following the acquisition of ESF by WTB it was agreed to employ a product manager to look after the sales and Alan Lowry was employed at the end of 1999 for this purpose. The company set about selling its range of exterior furniture products through the depots initially in Northern Ireland, Ireland and then Scotland. Due to Burdens staff restructuring, some additional team members were seconded and joined the ESF team, some for a short time and others for longer. Prior to this Burdens had promoted street furniture under the ‘street furniture by Burdens’ banner with limited success. The concept was to grow the brand identity of ESF and therefore ensure it wasn’t seen as a commodity product like other products Burdens would promote.
Sales were increasing year on year and with the previous experience Alan had in the exterior lighting market, coupled with Burdens’ acquisition of McCreath Taylor, the company enjoyed much success in the street lighting market, as well as playground equipment and highways products. Many depots were quick to respond to this new range of products and those who encompassed it in the early days are still seeing the ‘fruits of their labour’ even today.
Staff – Karen Lowry was the first to join the ESF team having been transferred from WE Bullick in 1999 and then in 2003 Lynsey McNarry (now McCloskey) and Kevin Davies (now Davies) joined the ESF team and are still valued employees today, operating in the roles of Business Development Managers covering Ireland and the UK respectively. The team was further enhanced in 2007 when Louise McClean joined the team in a marketing role and in 2009 Leah Irwin also joined the sales office in Belfast in a telemarketing role. ESF operates a very small and compact team making use of the expertise of the staff within their given areas, and also keeping costs to a minimum. The sales office, although covering the ‘world’ is based within the Burdens Newtownabbey depot in Northern Ireland.
What do ESF do?
Products – ESF design, import, source, stock and supply a huge selection of exterior street furniture products, exterior lighting and LED’s, and highways products, all of which are available through the Burdens depot network. The products are promoted through four distinct product collections ‘Signature, Simplicity, Sustainable and Streetwise’. These collections allow for definition in materials, availability, pricing and environmental issues while building brand awareness of the ESF range. Everything from bins, bollards, bike racks and benches through to drinking fountains, lighting columns, smoking shelters, bandstands and ‘sticky tactiles’ are all part of the ESF product portfolio. The exterior lighting offering includes columns, control gear and LED’s. ESF also offer an opportunity to design your own products through a bespoke
manufacturing service for larger projects.
Projects - ESF have been involved in many prestigious projects throughout the UK and Ireland and also overseas. Early successes included a £100K playground scheme for the Arcadia in Portrush, Bangor Marina and the Laganside regeneration, all in Northern Ireland. More latterly projects for the law courts in Neath, Mallow Town Centre in Cork and council offices in Donegal were also completed in Ireland. A £300K order for Aviemore in Scotland was supplied by ESF in 2005 and over the last 3 years many marina projects in South Wales have all been completed using ESF products encompassing the latest LED technology into handrail. Since 2008 ESF have been specified and supplying chools projects throughout England and most recently Rokeby and Lister Schools have been completed.
Overseas - Since 2004 ESF have been promoting street furniture overseas with early successes through the joint Burdens & Ham Baker office in the Middle East. This work has grown and currently the street furniture range makes up a large percentage of the work supplied by the Burdens depot in Jebel Ali, Dubai where Mark Hex and Octavian (Victor) Fichardo do a great job in developing the ESF brand throughout the Middle East. Most recently the ‘Jumierah Lake Towers’ project was completed. Currently the Dubai office has eight live ESF specified projects for completion in 2011. In 2005 ESF started investigating the ‘site furnishings’ market in the USA. An agreement with Sigma Corp was established in 2007 and since then ‘ESF by Sigma’ have supplied numerous projects in Florida, New York, Texas, California and New Jersey. The work in the USA continues to grow each year. The ESF sales office receives overseas enquiries weekly and many of these have been converted into profitable orders. Most recently a project in Copenhagen has been successfully won by ESF supplying bespoke cast iron litter bins to a new town. ESF source a number of products from overseas and the ‘Signature Collection’ has been developed in conjunction with MMCite from the Czech Republic, as well as other new suppliers from Spain and Germany.
Where to now?
To sustain the ongoing success ESF have enjoyed, we always have to be looking forward and diversifying to meet new market needs in the present financial climate. This attitude is why ESF has been such a successful brand within WTB and our latest 5 year plan outlines our aspirations for continued growth. These areas of future development include:
St Columb’s Cathedral, Londonderry - this will be the first cathedral in the world to be lit entirely using LED’s both inside and out and has been a superb ongoing project for ESF due to complete late 2010.
Australia - with Burdens now operating from two office locations, ESF will be carrying out a market analysis in 2011 with a view to developing business in this country.
South Africa - early indications from an initial market survey show a thriving construction industry in which ESF plan to develop in 2011 and onwards.
Depot Display Areas - ESF recently completed the first onsite depot display area in the new Burdens Lisburn location. This is a permanent display of many of the most popular products and is available for contractors and specifiers to visit. This was completed following numerous requests for ‘samples’ to secure orders. A recent launch was attended by many local customers and the area will service all the Irish depots. It is anticipated other regions may want to follow suit.
With ‘green issues’ so high on everyone’s agenda, and road safety high on the government’s priority list, ESF have successfully secured the distribution of the ‘Aluminium Lighting Company’ range of passively safe, recycled aluminium columns for Burdens Northern Ireland and Ireland. This is a great opportunity to develop other products in the lighting market and is due to commence in January 2011.
ESF Charity
The ESF Managing Director, Alan Lowry and his wife Caroline are involved in running a charity to raise money for orphans and children in Zimbabwe. The charity ‘Zimbabwe Orphan Care’ has beenoperating since 1999 and pays school fees and provides uniforms, and feeding
programmes and in 2009 opened a home for abandoned babies called ‘Jabulani’ (happy in Shona). ESF are proud to support ZOC and have recently provided some picnic tables and other products for Jabulani.