Revolutionary laundry system developer Xeros has added another accolade to its string of business awards.
The organisation, whose headquarters are at the Advanced Manufacturing Park in South Yorkshire, took the Innovator prize for most creative or original business thinking in the 2015 Yorkshire Business Masters Awards. The scheme recognises “excellence, entrepreneurship, growth and enterprise in the region’s corporate community” and attracted a record number of entries this year.
Xeros’ award is for its domestic laundering system, which, after 12 months of machine development and a year of testing, is now at the advanced prototype stage. The organisation’s commercial machine is already an established and growing presence among target customers, such as laundries, hotels and other businesses where they wash garments in large quantities.
The Xeros system is the first genuine innovation in laundering for 60 years, in which water is largely replaced by unique, fully re-usable and recyclable polymer beads. These can be used for hundreds of washes without losing their effectiveness.
Compared to conventional commercial laundry machines, Xeros machines typically use up to 80 per cent less water and only half as much energy and detergent.
Commenting on the latest award, Xeros chief executive officer Bill Westwater said: “We’re delighted at this accolade, which follows a string of earlier regional, national and international awards for our technology, recognising attributes including its outstanding environmental credentials.
“Our entry showed how we have achieved significant refinements in developing the domestic system from our established commercial machine. These included devising a unique, compressed design, to accommodate the necessary infrastructure in a much smaller box, adjusting the laundering cycle and experimenting with different polymer beads.”
The entry explained how Xeros commissioned leading consultancy Sustain to undertake an independent assessment of the prototype’s environmental impact, compared to a traditional domestic appliance. Quite apart from the obvious water savings Sustain found that, over its lifetime, it provided reductions of 44 per cent for carbon footprint, predominantly due to lower temperature washing in a Xeros Machine.
Xeros plans to launch its domestic technology by licensing it to leading machine manufacturers who will build the machines and Xeros will supply the beads required in the machines.
The Yorkshire Business Masters Awards are organised by leading regional online news service TheBusinessDesk.com.
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