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Our Sustainability Engagement

 

At ZirPro, Sustainability is a major strategic priority at the heart of our business. We contribute to Saint-Gobain ambitious plan to reduce its CO2 emissions by 20% and its energy consumption by 15% by 2025. Our actions are structured around 4 priorities, aiming at reinforcing our positioning as a market leader for a more sustainable world.

 

1) Pursue an ambitious policy to constantly improve workplace health & safety

Safety remains our number 1 priority, as in all Saint-Gobain.

A global Safety program named “WE CARE” is implemented across all our plants, where we work on all aspects of safety, including safety standards, risk assessment and employees’ behavior. Our managers are key players in our safety targets, and our operators are assessed multiple times per year regarding safety, through the SMAT program (Safety Management Audit Tool).

The safety of our employees is key, and so is their health and wellbeing at work. We actively work in all our plants to reduce noise, limit exposure to hazardous materials and improve operations ergonomics.

 

2) Reduce our operations environmental footprint

ZirPro is working at several levels to reduce our carbon footprint.

We defined action plans in all our plants to:

  • Increase the energy efficiency of our production (e.g. change existing high-consumption equipment, accelerate digitization of our operations for better production monitoring, ...)
  • Reduce the use of fresh raw materials by recycling secondary raw materials in our furnaces as much as possible
  • Reduce our CO2 emissions (e.g. convert existing equipment to carbon-free energy, reduce overall consumption)
  • Optimize our water resources by increasing water treatment and reuse
  • Reduce non-recovered waste by increasing the reuse in our industrial processes
  • Offer more sustainable packaging

 

We encourage all our employees to reduce our overall environmental footprint, through small gestures in all offices and plants, like waste sorting and recycling, lowering paper use, reducing travels and replacing them by video calls whenever possible.

We work with all our suppliers of raw materials, consumables and energy to reduce the overall environmental footprint, use greener energy and use more sustainable raw materials.

 

3) Continuously develop and propose products for sustainability

At ZirPro, we have a full offer around sustainability, including products for sustainability markets like electric vehicles, carbon-free energy production, … as well as products contributing to more sustainable processes or operations for our customers. Sustainability aspects are also taken into account in our innovation projects prioritization.

Here are some examples:
  • Fine Yttria stabilized Zirconia beads to grind Li-batteries materials for Electric Vehicles
  • Zirconia powders in multiple applications, aiming at reducing energy consumption of different types of vehicles (zirconia for Oxygen sensors for cars, SOFC for alternative energy, zirconia for thermal barrier coatings markets for aircrafts, …)
  • Surface Treatment beads to replace chemical treatments
  • Microgrinding beads to achieve finer agrochemicals and use less active products on crops

 

4) Manage product lifecycle thanks to our recycling offer

In order to manage the full product lifecycle, we have developed a recycling offer for our customers, that allows them to dispose our used products for future industrial reuse or disposal in perfect conditions, compliant with local regulations. We collaborate with Valoref – one of Saint-Gobain subsidiaries – the European leader in ceramic waste treatment.

All your zirconia beads and powders can be part of this offer. If you are interested, don’t hesitate to contact us to get more details.