Environment
Environment
The duty of a socially responsible company is a responsible environmental management. This is how we look at the greatest economic, political, social and technological challenge in today’s society.
To reduce our footprint on the planet, we must be able to recognize the impact of our industry on the environment, searching for ways to minimize that same footprint throughout the supply chain.
At Ferral we divided our commitment into five cornerstones of action:
1 - The choice of materials that are used
More than 90% of our raw material is aluminium and this tendency is growing. Known as the “green metal” and increasingly chosen in new applications, the aluminium’s unique combination of lightness, strength and durability allows for unparalleled waste reduction and logistical optimization.
The increase in demand for aluminium expected for the next years (+80% by 2050*) makes it essential to have cleaner processes for the production of primary material, but also awareness of the use of recycled material. This is what we expect and promote with our suppliers.
2 - Promoting the circular economy
One of the unique benefits of aluminium is its ability to preserve properties when recycled and it can be recycled endlessly. This process requires only 5% of the energy required to produce primary aluminium.
With the expected increase in demand, the future will be the combined use of recycled and primary aluminium, for which it is necessary to collect unused products from the market. Together with our partners, we are developing strategies to promote the collection of the largest number of obsolete products on the market for recycling processes.
3 - Decrease of unnecessary materials
In Ferral’s area of operation, there is an extra sensitivity with regard to the decrease of material in the product. In a safety product, finding the balance between complying with all regulations and using only the essential raw material is the progress we seek daily.
But this commitment also extends to packaging. The plastic in our product only protects the product from small surface scratches, not from a possible transport damage to the product. That is why we have ambitious goals to end plastic packaging in some of our products, we can no longer cling to stigmas from the past.
4 - Manufacturing efficiency
One of the main objectives of modern industry is the optimization of resources. An optimized factory will be able to produce more with less resources, whether these resources are energy, equipment, raw material, etc.
These improvements that begin in the planning processes and end in logistics operations are part of our DNA. We have the ambition to be a smarter factory every day.
5 - Team awareness
Businesses are people, and they are the key to the success of what we can and cannot achieve. If we have the environment as a priority, then we all have to be in sync to this cause.
On a regular basis, we promote training sessions and team building programs focused on the problem of climate change for the team. Ferral wants to be part of the solution, not the problem. This is how, in all decision-making processes, we promote and put environmental management as a priority.
* Source: World Aluminium – Aluminium sector March 2021