Management of water as a shared resource

We respect water as a shared resource and take our responsibility to use it wisely at all our sites. It is used primarily in facility amenities such as showers, sanitation and food preparation, but also as a minor component in manufacturing, such as cooling and cleaning. As the impacts from our direct water usage occur at a local level where we operate, our measures and initiatives are individualized for our sites.

Ten of our 25 locations are situated in water-stressed areas, where we have initiated several projects to reduce water usage. Our water management work focuses on optimizing how we work with water from several perspectives. We have initiatives to reduce overall water consumption. We monitor and prevent groundwater contamination, and control wastewater discharge.

Rainwater is harvested at some of our sites and utilized for different purposes. This includes landscape irrigation, fire protection reservoirs, and to water employee vegetable gardens.

To further develop our targets and actions we need to perform a thorough assessment to identify where our main dependencies on water occur in our value chain. The materials we purchase may have a higher water consumption, indicating that our business depends more on access to water than our operations alone suggests.

Paint Plant of the Future – a concept that defines sustainability standards

Volatile organic compounds (VOC), spills, odors, dust from solid raw materials, natural gas, diesel consumption, and noise can have negative impacts on people and the environment. To better manage and minimize these impacts going forward, we use our global concept Paint Plant of the Future (PPF). The concept is centered around forward-thinking and planning how and when to best mitigate these environmental and social impacts associated with our industry and operations. During the planning process, standards for sustainability and manufacturing efficiency are set at all our sites. The plans include topics such as using renewable sources of energy, assessing  alternatives to natural gas for heating, retention systems, processes to reduce packaging or waste, ISO standard requirements, and highly automated manufacturing processes that improve working conditions.

A focus area for all sites is how to reduce, contain, extract, measure and abate VOC emissions. This coincides with our climate goals, but also minimizes the negative impacts VOCs can have on people working with the coatings. Steps like improving the measuring systems of VOCs throughout the site can play an important role in mapping and prioritizing future actions and investments. A creative solution under investigation is the potential to install bioreactors that use bacteria to eat VOCs, which also reduces the need for energy consumption.

Overall, the plans developed by the sites since PPF’s launch in 2021 bring our 2030 Goals to life through concrete plans and actions.