The Environment

We take environmental responsibility seriously and strive to continuously minimize our impact on the environment and actively promote sustainability in all of our actions. The products we manufacture are of the highest quality and are meant to last for years or even decades. Even after a product has worn out, it can be recycled and the material reused for some other purpose.

We always minimize the use of raw materials and use as much recycled material as we can. For example, all flower pots, snow tools, bins and SmartStore box clips are made entirely of recycled materials. The amount of recycled material that we use has increased every year since 2012. Research is carried out all the time to find alternative, more sustainable bio-based raw materials that are even more environmentally friendly. Lately we have taken many bioplastic materials into use in for example the kitchen category. We aim for our production to be carbon neutral by 2030.

At our factories in Finland and in Sweden our two main environmental targets are to reduce the use of electricity and lower the scrap rate. We have made significant efforts in order to reduce the energy consumption year after year. The products are designed to be as efficient as possible in the production to consume less energy and also in terms of logistics. We actively change our machines to new, more energy-efficient ones. All Orthex Group factories had an environmental site assessment by Environ International Corporation in 2014. The assessment showed no risk to the environment. All our factories are also ISO9001 and 14001 certified. The ISO 14001 certification guarantees that our environmental management is at its best and that we strive to minimize our environmental footprint.

In resource efficiency our focus points are energy efficiency and decreasing production scrap.

• Our target is to decrease energy consumption per produced kilo (-5% rolling 3 year) and to minimize scrap cost to less than 2% in production
• Most of our scrapped items  are used as recycled material in our own production

Here are some concrete examples of actions made to achieve resource efficiency in production:

2012: Renewing the cooling system at the Finnish Factory. Joining national energy efficiency program in Finland.

2013: Three new energy efficient machines.

2014: Change to thermal heating at Swedish Factory + 2 new energy efficient machines.

2015: Two new energy efficient machines.

2016: Four new energy efficient machines.

2017: Energy efficiency project launched in Sweden + 2 new energy efficient machines.

2018: 3 new energy efficient machines

2019: 2 New energy efficient Machines

2020: Reduction of CO2 with Green Energy in Finland + replacement of equipment with energy efficient technology