| Front page | | Contents | | Previous | | Next |

Manual on Product-Oriented Environmental Work

2 The Companies

The manual has been developed in cooperation with a number of companies. The six companies mentioned in the preface have participated in a continuous process, while others have helped to clarify particular problems. In all cases, the companies' experiences are included in the manual as examples to inspire others.

The following companies have provided examples for the manual:

2.1 The six companies

C.C. Jensen A/S (called CCJ in the following) makes metal goods for ships. The production is carried out in three divisions: a metal-casting division, a filter division and a window division.The company has around 150 employees, 142 of whom are based in Svendborg. CCJ is not at present environmentally certified but wants to build up a certifiable system that incorporates the product dimension.

In the project, the focus is on the metal-casting division, which specialises in ship propellers with sand casting of large items in small series.With its product-oriented action in connection with its other environmental work, CCJ expects to:

	anticipate coming environmental requirements
	achieve a basic system that can deliver the necessary environmental documentation concerning the company's products at short notice
	change attitudes and create environmental awareness among the company's employees
	attract and keep employees by creating a good environmental profile and a good corporate image.

TM Coating DK ApS (called TM Coating in the following) specialises in anti-condensation coatings and has been supplying the whole of Europe with TM ECO-THERM anti-condensation coating for 20 years.The company has six employees. It also has a division that specialises in spraying anti-condensation coatings.

The company's environmental strategy is to anticipate coming environmental requirements, and there are already today requirements concerning documentation of health and safety and environmental aspects of the company's production and products. In 1998/99,TM Coating achieved ISO 14001 and EMAS environmental certification. It plans to fully integrate the product dimension in its environmental management system.

With its product-oriented work,TM Coating expects to:

	strengthen the product profile by also being able to supply documentation concerning environmental and occupational health and safety aspects
	prepare an environmental declaration for TM ECO-THERM anticondensation coating
	strengthen the company's environmental management system by using the life cycle approach to identify possibilities for environmental improvements and to meet the requirement concerning continual improvements.

Ergonova assembles and sells ergonomic height-adjustable office desks, with each desk adapted to individual wishes concerning shape, size, type, type of wood, etc.The company, which was established in 1990, has around 35 employees. Ergonova assembles and packs the desks, while its suppliers take care of everything else. However, the company has its own workshop, including a joinery, so it can do cutting, welding and painting itself if the desks supplied need altering or repair. Besides its own production, Ergonova has agencies for various office equipment that fits in with its business concept.

Ergonova has decided to build up a combined quality and environmental management system in conformity with ISO 9001/14001 and to seek registration under EMAS. Ergonova also wants to be able to supply environmental (and possibly occupational health and safety) documentation for its products.

With its product-oriented work, Ergonova expects to:

	prepare environmental product declarations
	incorporate the product dimension in its environmental work
	get environmental aspects included in its customers' expectations concerning quality.

Henkel-Ecolab A/S makes and sells different types of cleaning agents, mainly for professional applications. It also develops cleaning and washing concepts, including dosing equipment and recirculation of wastewater. The production itself consists mainly of mixing and tapping the chemicals received from other factories in the group. Henkel-Ecolab was established in 1991 as a joint venture with the German Henkel Group and American Ecolab. The Danish part of the company has 168 employees and gained environmental certification of the production in accordance with BS 7750 in 1994 and in accordance with ISO 14001 in 1997.The company is now working to get the rest of the organisation included in the certification.

With its product-oriented work, Henkel-Ecolab expects to:

	expand the action area for continual improvements in its environmental management work
	get the organisation to think in life cycle terms
	achieve closer cooperation with its customers on environmental solutions.

APC Denmark ApS (APC) makes 3-phase uninterruptible power supplies (so-called UPSs).The company was established in 1942 and is domiciled in Kolding.Today, APC has around 350 employees and is a division of an international group with about 5,000 employees. APC has both quality and environmental certification in accordance with ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, and is working actively on incorporating the product dimension in its environmental work.

With its product-oriented action, APC expects to:

	optimise its environmental product declarations for selected products
	keep and preferably increase its market shares
	stay abreast of customer enquiries.

Coloplast's original business mission was ostomy products for people whose intestinal outlet or urinary tract has been surgically rerouted through the abdominal wall. Since the end of the 1970s, the company has established new business areas based on adhesion technology and the corporate mission of helping people who have to live with a physical disability. Besides ostomy products, Coloplast now makes and sells products within five other business areas: continence care, wound care, skin care, breast care and consumer products. Coloplast has 3,745 employees, more than half of whom work in Denmark.The company has both quality and environmental certification.

With its product-oriented work, Coloplast expects to:

	gain detailed knowledge about the total life-cycle environmental impacts of the company's main products
	prepare environmental product declarations for the products
	use their environmental performance and environmental documentation as active competitive parameters.

2.2 Targeted action produces results

Brdr. Hartmann and Grundfos are good examples of the fact that incorporating the product dimension is not just a theoretical exercise but reality for some Danish companies.

2.2.1 Brdr. Hartmann A/S

Brdr. Hartmann A/S (called Hartmann in the following) was established in 1917.Today, it specialises in moulded-fibre packaging made almost exclusively from recycled paper. Hartmann operates globally and has more than 2,000 employees at nine production sites and a number of sales companies in Europe, South America and Asia. The production sites in Denmark have ISO 14001 certification and are registered under EMAS.The production in Malaysia also has ISO 14001 certification. Hartmann's 5-phase environmental management system is ensuring that the other production sites also gain an environmental management certificate.

Life cycle assessments are a vital element of the Hartmann Group's environmental strategy and practical environmental work. The life cycle approach is embedded in the Group's environmental strategy with a view to developing integrated environmental management of the Group in accordance with the life cycle concept.

On the way to this objective, Hartmann is continually developing practical guidelines and tools that are based on the life cycle assessments carried out and that support the daily work on environmental management of processes and products.

The overall purpose of Hartmann's focus on life cycle thinking is to reduce the total environmental impacts from production and disposal of its products, because every time the total environmental impacts are reduced, Hartmann's environmental competitiveness improves. Hartmann wants to satisfy its customers' expectations concerning the company's environmental responsibility and to demonstrate that. Hartmann also wants to anticipate legislative requirements, which are expected to move from regulation of production processes towards regulation of the products' total environmental impacts.

Product-oriented environmental work must live up to two criteria:

1. The environmental knowledge base must be relevant and adequate and be used where warranted.
2. Alternative solutions must be practicable and the benefits must feed through in the company's daily work.

Quoted from Aktuelt Miljø (Environment Today) No. 6, 1996

Hartmann has therefore developed a range of tools for incorporating the product dimension in the different functions of the organisation.The tools include:

	the management's environmental strategy
	questionnaires for use by the purchasing department vis-à-vis suppliers
	documentation concerning environmental impacts and action for use by the sales representatives
	environmental profiles for selected raw materials for use by the product developers
	scenarios for planning least environmentally harmful transport.

In addition, employee training includes knowledge about the products' life cycles and related environmental impacts.

2.2.2 Grundfos

Grundfos, which makes pumps and pump systems, has production facilities in several European countries and sales offices all over the world. It has more than 9,500 employees. The production sites have ISO 9001 certification, and the Danish factories have ISO 14001 certification and EMAS registration as well.

At the beginning of the 1990s, Grundfos participated in the project Environmental Design of Industrial Products (EDIP), the purpose of which was to develop a life cycle method for use in product development. Grundfos built up detailed knowledge of its products' environmental impacts, and today, care for the environment is a principle in the development of new products. For example, all new products are specifically required to be, on average, at least 5% more energy efficient and to use at least 3% less materials that the "old" products they are replacing.

However, as can be seen from the company's environmental policy statement, its product-oriented work is not limited to product development. Wherever there are environmental problems to work on in the organisation, the employees have a duty to achieve improvements. The attitude is that the results must be achieved as a natural element of the daily work and form part of employee development. In other words, the action is decentralised and not "left" to an environmental function.

Grundfos is also very aware of the importance of the action needed throughout the life cycle of its products. This is epitomised in the motto The environmental partnership of the future:

"Sustainability calls for forethought and long-term focus on sustainable solutions instead of cheap and easy, here-and-now solutions. For that, close cooperation is needed between all links in the distribution chain - the manufacturer, the wholesaler, the retailer and the electrician. As a manufacturer, Grundfos considers its principal task to be to develop material saving, energy-efficient pumps and pump systems, to make these pumps with minimum waste of materials and energy, to distribute the products efficiently and to provide our customers with professional advice on energy-efficient pump operation.

The retailer can contribute to this process by actively promoting the new, energy-efficient solutions.To do that, his staff must learn more about the products and the benefits of energy-efficient solutions. In addition, the retailer must display energy-efficient pumps very prominently in his shop and advise his customers – electricians – to stock and install energy-efficient products instead of the well-known standard ones. In the time ahead, Grundfos will take further steps to market energy-efficient products more distinctively and aggressively than hitherto."

Quoted from the Grundfos Group’s Annual Profile 1997

| Front page | | Contents | | Previous | | Next | | Top |