To reduce pack­aging waste, we imple­ment measures such as reusable paper or plastic pack­aging. For example, we use reusable plastic folding boxes both for ship­ping goods to our customers and for receiving mate­rials from our suppliers. After use, the boxes are initially stored at the recipient’s premises, before being returned empty for the next delivery.

“This prac­tice has already enabled us to save several tons of pack­aging mate­rials,” explains Ulf-Peter Klotz, Group Manager for Pack­aging Manage­ment & Quality Assur­ance at ebm-papst. Pack­aging is frequently under­es­ti­mated, but it’s a key part of a company’s sustain­ability strategy. “It’s often the small tweaks that have the biggest impact,” says Ulf-Peter Klotz.

As part of a compre­hen­sive analysis and with the help of a special calcu­la­tion tool that compares carbon foot­print and resource consump­tion, we exam­ined the concept of “dispos­able versus reusable” more closely. “We took into account not just the return and reuse of the containers, but also their cleaning and repair, which affect the reusable system’s carbon foot­print. Although this indi­vidual approach is very time-consuming, it is ulti­mately rele­vant for our climate objec­tives,” Ulf-Peter Klotz is keen to stress. “We want to act sensibly and reason­ably, opti­mizing sustain­ability in all aspects of our busi­ness activ­i­ties.”

168

The way one of our most precious resources – water – is used at ebm-papst sites all around the world also acts as a clear state­ment of the company’s inten­tions. In addi­tion to the three painting systems in Mulfingen and a combined cathodic dip coating/powder coating system at the company’s Oster­burken site, ebm-papst also oper­ates a cathodic dip coating system in Tapolca, Hungary, a powder coating system in India, and a cathodic dip coating system in Italy, which is currently being replaced as a new building and painting system are installed at the site.

At all our loca­tions, we have reduced the volume of water we consume to the bare minimum. In Mulfingen, for example, water use has been signif­i­cantly lowered thanks to contin­uous tech­nical devel­op­ments and our connec­tion of a waste­water treat­ment plant. To date, the volume of waste­water has been reduced from around 66 to just 22 cubic meters per week.

Among other improve­ments, the water we use at the site is recy­cled and fed back into the water cycle via cascade and flushing systems. This process can some­times be repeated several times to further increase the bene­fits. After treat­ment in the waste­water treat­ment plant, the puri­fied water is discharged to the local sewage treat­ment facility. None of the inspec­tions carried out by the district admin­is­tra­tion in Mulfingen over the past 20 years, which are always irreg­ular and unan­nounced, have resulted in any complaints. This shows how seri­ously we take the issue of water use and treat­ment at ebm-papst.