Respecting our environment

The resource-conserving use of materials; the protection of water, soil and air; and responsible conduct in the region have been among the fundamental ideas behind every change at ASSMANN for almost 30 years. Accordingly, the environmental management system was certified very early, back in 1996, and the company has used the DIN EN ISO 14001 standard for orientation ever since.

It was around the same time that the office furniture manufacturer first sought support from B.A.U.M. e. V. Since 1984, the association’s aim has been to use sustainable economics to maintain habitats all around the world, thus securing a future worth living interplay between climate and biodiversity protection. Today, the association has around 800 members who are committed to working together to promote environmentally friendly and economically and socially responsible economic activity. Dieter Brübach, Deputy Chairman of B.A.U.M. e. V., is in regular contact with them. He is pleased when members achieve relevant optimisations in terms of environmental protection through modernisation measures, a new impetus from their networking efforts, or even small adjustments in their daily work practices. “We have already mastered a number of challenges together with ASSMANN and brought to life some interesting projects,” says Dieter Brübach in appreciation of the collaboration. “In addition to the ambitious targets in terms of resource-conserving material use and environmentally friendly waste utilisation, there are also other measures that are seen as essential for the future of sustainable business,” he says. The collaboration in 2021’s “Büro & Umwelt” (Office & Environment) competition, which promoted the procurement of environmentally friendly office products, is regarded by Dieter Brübach as an interesting change from the otherwise more strategic teamwork. “We are also pleased that other B.A.U.M. e. V. member companies are able to benefit from ASSMANN's experience, as over the years the family-owned company has become an expert in the field of sustainability,” says Dieter Brübach. As a result, the association also regularly receives suggestions from the corporate world.

Changes rarely happen overnight. In the field of environmental protection, it is important to analyse up-to-date results so that relevant measures can be defined and implemented in the long term. “With the help of daily inspection rounds, we check the processes and machines used at the company and identify further potential,” explains Jörg Koppe. “But we are already achieving very good results in terms of energy efficiency and environmental protection,” he emphasises. His day-to-day work includes machine maintenance, repairs and cleaning, as well as finding and eliminating compressed air leaks and other defects that would result in increased energy consumption or environmental pollution. Regular inspections also ensure that the installations have a long service life, which means that new purchases are not required until much later on.

In addition to the inspections, ASSMANN uses oil-water separators and oil separators to prevent the environment from being contaminated by sewage. Dieter Brübach is a fan of this sense of responsibility: “Measures both big and small are crucial if you want to run a company with environmental protection in mind,” he says.

The selection of environmentally friendly raw materials and their careful processing are part of ASSMANN's sustainability strategy. How waste from production – such as wood offcuts – is dealt with is also important. “We have been heating our Melle site entirely using production waste since the company was founded in 1939,” notes Jörg Koppe, who has been carefully maintaining the incinerator for two decades. He is also responsible for keeping an eye on the emission limits and initiating the necessary optimisation measures. Thanks to its in-house wood combustion plant, ASSMANN has no need for fossil fuels. The existing oil heating system is only maintained as a back-up. As Dieter Brübach explains, this is a sensible strategy, albeit one with a small flaw: “By burning wood from our existing stocks, ASSMANN avoids additional deforestation. All we need to do now is optimise the resulting carbonemissions.” This is a tip that Maintenance Manager Jörg Koppe has already taken note of for the next time new measures are defined: “We record the amount of chips we burn each month in order to precisely analyse our energy consumption and come up with targeted measures to optimise it. However, the combustion boiler remains an important achievement for our sustainable conduct. Something else we want to achieve in terms of environmental management is to further reduce the volume of hazardous substances we produce, which we could do by using substitutes for conventional cleaning agents, for example.” This means that ASSMANN's hazardous substance management remains an ongoing and future-oriented process.