Generating solar power and pride
Investing in solar power panels on our largest assembly and logistics facilities is an important part of lowering the CO2 emissions from our operations.
Finding local ways to achieve Group goals
Every operational entity in the Atlas Copco Group identifies its own local initiatives and strategy for helping the Group achieve its sustainability goals.
The Power Tools Distribution center launched their Sustainability Road Map in 2016 with a clear ambition to reduce the environmental footprint of the entity. It started with rainwater harvesting to reduce the overall water consumption. Afterwards the center continued with investing in new, more efficient heating installations, installing LED lights in the warehouse and moving towards Li-ION batteries for the rolling equipment.
All parts of the organization are working to reduce CO2 emissions from operations and transport, one of the Group’s key performance indicators.
After significantly reducing the site’s energy consumption, solar panels were installed as the next step in the roadmap. Successfully decreasing the site’s electricity consumption by 31% and water consumption by 34% since 2016, they continued with a new focus on packaging in 2020.
“We defined three pillars in our sustainability roadmap. One was a reduced energy footprint, another one is to focus on our packing material. As a distribution center we use a lot of packing material. And here we took the approach of wanting to work plastic-free where possible, but also safeguard that all the paper we add to our boxes is recycled material,” said Kurt Andries, General Manager of Power Tools Distribution in Hoeselt, Belgium.
“The last pillar we are working on now is to reduce our CO2 emissions from transport. This is for sure a challenging one. We will work on this over the next few years, together with the divisions and customer centers we support.
“Our roadmap has brought not only sustainability improvements, but also reduced our costs,” Kurt Andries said.
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