SPAX - WE CARE

The SPAX Sustainability Program:

With SPAX, everything lasts longer.
Even our planet.

We know that we bear responsibility for every step we take – for people and our environment. Each individual contributes to climate change and can help shape it. Especially as a company, we play an important role – and have recognized: We can make a difference!

We give sustainability the priority we deserve and constantly question our actions – as a contribution to the preservation of our planet, as a signal to our employees and as a promise to our customers.

Discover our sustainability report now and find out what all happened at SPAX in 2022.

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We take a position – as neutral as possible.

The Paris Climate Agreement is trend-setting for society. We want to make our contribution to climate neutrality and are always looking for potential for improvement in order to reduce greenhouse gases. In doing so, we focus on the upstream and downstream activities in our company. We do not have a direct influence on all activities, but we are looking at where we can see room for manoeuvre.

We care.

Scope 1

All emissions directly caused by combustion. They arise from the activity of a company – for example, through machinery, vehicle fleet, gas for heating and air conditioning.

Scope 2

All indirect emissions. They arise from the consumption of electricity, heat or steam that companies purchase from utilities – for example, when operating production facilities and office buildings.

Scope 3

All other indirect emissions in the supply chain. They arise as a result of the activities of a company along the value chain over which it itself has no control – for example, in the provision of raw materials, transport, commuter traffic and business travel.

Our goals

As a matter of principle, we want to avoid the consumption of – especially fossil fuels – or at least reduce it in a first step. That is why we are working towards the following goals:

Products

Procurement of sustainably produced products

No waste

Avoiding waste at every level

Thrift

Reduction of energy consumption

Protecting the environment

Reduce pollution, water consumption and noise

Processes

Effectiveness of work, business, production and development processes

Resources

Resource-efficient development

Our measures

LED lighting

On our production areas, we have converted all lighting to environmentally friendly LED lighting. Only energy-saving ceiling spotlights are also used in our offices. In less frequented rooms, we use motion detectors that automatically turn off the light when the room has been left. This is mainly used in rooms that are unused for some time, such as a shift management office in production.

Heat recovery

To support our hot water needs for production in Ennepetal, we have invested in new air compressors. The majority of the energy used in compressed air generation is converted into compressed heat that can be used: the recovered energy is used to heat our premises, heat domestic water and our industrial processes.

Ecological cleaning

In the hardening shop of our production, we have improved the processes of intermediate washing systems in the heat treatment of our screws. Whereas our screws were previously washed at 70°C between the hardening and tempering process, we were able to reduce the temperature to 35°C with the same washing result – with an equivalent washing result – thanks to a new cleaning system. This not only saves us a lot of energy, but also a lot of water, as we have also avoided evaporation losses.

Environmental

Already in 2017, we established a sustainable environmental management system in accordance with DIN EN ISO 14001. This obliges us to continuously review our operational processes according to environmental protection aspects: We continuously optimize operational environmental protection, identify opportunities and risks and reduce environmental risks. By consistently complying with environmental protection guidelines, we live up to our ecological responsibility.

E-mobility

As an environmentally conscious company, we are converting our fleet to e-mobility: Since 2020, we have increased the share of electric and hybrid vehicles from 7 percent to 31 percent – and will continue to expand this share. We have also set up our own intelligent charging infrastructure: We can charge our vehicles ourselves at 28 charging points. The efficient charging management ensures that the total current is not exceeded during charging and is intelligently distributed.

Energy efficiency

Since 2014, we have been certified according to energy management according to DIN ISO 50001 and are continuously improving our energy efficiency. We have identified our savings potential and are optimizing it in an ongoing process. We recorded the energy consumption in our company and evaluated it for efficiency. From this, we have developed technical, strategic and organizational measures to improve our energy efficiency.

New concepts

We have developed a concept for the climate-neutral operation of our administration building in Gevelsberg. This involves the use of green electricity, the addition of photovoltaics including storage, as well as the participation in wind energy and biogas as compensation for consumed electricity. Our main location in Ennepetal is currently being re-insulated and windows and facades have already been replaced to reduce energy consumption. To reduce fresh water consumption, adiabatic cooling was installed.

Actuator-native packaging

In order to avoid plastic waste and for a better ecological balance in packaging production, we have started to convert the packaging of our products to environmentally friendly alternatives: Our professional packs are made of fully recyclable cardboard boxes, and we do not use plastic as a packaging material. Retail packaging is also gradually being converted to environmentally friendly alternatives.

Seal

All paper products we manufacture at SPAX – such as cardboard packaging, catalogues, flyers and brochures – are FSC/PEFC certified. In this way, we ensure that the paper comes from economically, socially and ecologically sustainable forest management. With the certifications, we ensure the obligation of forestry enterprises to comply with the applicable laws, to maintain or improve working conditions, to protect indigenous peoples and to low environmental impact.