Reducing our environmental footprint
Heinen & Hopman has been growing rapidly over recent years. We remain very ambitious, however, and are determined to build a sustainable business for the long term. And that means increasing the size of our business while reducing our environmental footprint.
This quest has resulted in an environmental philosophy and a vision of integrating a variety of eco-friendly solutions into our daily operations. In addition, we are constantly researching for ways to add ‘green’ value to our products in order to meet the ecological needs of our clients.
Why not use what our planet gives for free?
Geothermal energy covers 90.5% of our heating demands at the Heinen & Hopman headquarters so there is almost no need to burn fossil fuel. A geothermal heat pump takes advantage of the nearly constant temperature in the ground to meet the cooling and heating needs, requiring very little electricity consumption. In 2013 we saved 199.13 MWh of electricity for cooling compared to standard technologies, while reducing the amount of natural gas burned by 31789.43 m3. By using what the earth gives for free we lowered our environmental impact by the equivalent of 135 tonnes of CO2. Furthermore, solar panels have been installed on the entire roof of the headquarters’ workshop to provide it with solar energy.
Waste management: sorting everything possible
As a consequence of population growth and economic growth, global waste generation has increased – and will continue to increase – dramatically. Companies can play an important role in reversing this trend by ensuring that waste generated in their operations is properly disposed of, especially when it contains hazardous substances. The best option for the sustainable handling of waste is to recycle and reuse as much as possible. At Heinen & Hopman we apply sorting management to all waste generated from our operations, such as metal, wood, paper and antifreeze fluids. All used printer cartridges are collected and recycled too as these have a significant detrimental impact on our environment when thrown away with the rest of the waste.
Minimising company car fuel consumption
In order to minimise the fuel consumption of company cars, our employees are strongly encouraged to ride their bicycles to work instead of driving. Heinen & Hopman donates € 0.02 to a local charity for every kilometre saved. In January this translated into 4,262 kilometres of cycling and a donation of € 85.24. Our employees are also encouraged to drive in a more efficient way, including by a motivational ranking of fuel use. In addition, two company cars have recently been replaced by electric ones.
Refrigerant management
Our systems have been updated to comply with the latest European regulations concerning the use of F-gases. By using low-GWP HFCs while minimising refrigerant leakages, the refrigerant management at Heinen & Hopman is implemented in such a way that its environmental impact is further reduced.
More steps to reducing our environmental footprint
- By automatically controlling the entire headquarters’ lighting system and the taps in the lavatories, energy and water savings of up to 70% have been achieved.
- The use of server virtualisation allows 65 servers to run on three hardware pieces instead of 65. This has considerably lowered the energy consumption and cooling power required at the headquarters’ data centre.
- To minimise business trips, video conferencing is used whenever possible to reduce unnecessary travel and greenhouse gas emissions.
We cannot close our eyes to the challenges that the world faces. Businesses must make an explicit and positive contribution to addressing them. By changing and innovating our business processes, we are convinced that we can create a more sustainable world for all of us. And that is why everyone at Heinen & Hopman is always looking for new ways to reduce our environmental footprint.
