At Armacell, our commitment to environmental protection is part
and parcel of our corporate philosophy and business strategy.
We measure our success by the added value that our innovative solutions deliver to a diverse range of industries – benefits of societal and ecological significance. Our PET foam solutions made of 100% recycled bottles are the best example of our efforts towards sustainability. This is part of what we do to protect our planet.
We actively contribute to moving towards a sustainable society. To save resources and protect the planet, we firmly believe in collaboration and support valuable initiatives that help creating the society of tomorrow. Be it by donating products, money or time, Armacell values these actions and involves with them.
Plastic Whale
Plastic Whale is the first professional plastic fishing company in the world. A social enterprise with a mission: make the world’s waters plastic-free and create value from plastic waste. Armacell is a proud supplier of this company.
In 2019, distributors met our sales and marketing team during a two-day event in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. All the participants got actively involved in the Plastic Whale movement. They jumped onto boats to clear plastic waste from the city's canals. The harvested PET bottles were sent to a shredding company. The shredded plastic serves as a raw material for our ArmaPET products, which are used in the construction of Plastic Whale boats, allowing the social enterprise to fish even more waste.
Discover our 100% recycled PET foam solutions
Solar Autonomous Antartica
Armacell supported this project which targets heading the South Pole in a vehicle made of plastic waste and powered by the sun. The Solar Voyager vehicle was built with our PET material.
Insulation is key. To meet the growing demand for energy while at the same time protecting our planet for future generations, improving the energy efficiency of technical equipment is a prerequisite. The key technology for increasing energy efficiency is insulation. This is the role we want to play.
Our products save energy
Our insulation solutions play a crucial role in protecting equipment against energy losses in millions of applications worldwide.
First steps towards a circular economy
Armacell offers a wide range of environmentally friendly solutions based on 100% recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Until today, more than 2.5 billion PET bottles have been re-used to produce ArmaPET products. Our green foams made from post-consumer PET are installed, for example, in the rotor blades of wind turbines. Instead of a service life of just weeks, our PET foam cores endure several decades.
The increasing scarcity of resources is one of the greatest challenges of our times. Armacell is conscious about it and acts to address this challenge. To use resources as efficiently as possible, we are always searching for ways to reduce raw material use, energy consumption and waste.
One of the greatest challenges humankind faces is increasing resource scarcity. Measured against a set of KPIs, our environmental performance exhibits a positive trend. To enhance our environmental performance and awareness, we are constantly improving data accuracy and collection consistency.
WATER CONSUMPTION¹ in L
CO₂ EMISSIONS¹ in kg (Scope 1 & 2)
GENERATED WASTE in tonnes
ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION¹ in kWH
ENERGY CONSUMPTION¹ in MJ
GAS CONSUMPTION¹ in m³
¹ Per tonne of finished goods; Data covers 18 of our 27 plants. All numbers were restated.
Waste management
Our improved waste management process and accelerating recycling trend were achieved using the so-called 5R approach: Refuse/Reject (i.e. not producing waste in the first place), Reduce (waste), Reuse (before waste is even produced), Recycle (waste) and Recover (energy recovery). The 5R approach has brought significant advances at several plants.
Armacell essentially has two levers that enable and support our path to a circular economy. On the one hand, we are increasing the recycling volume of our production-related waste and, at the same time, further expanding the use of recycled PET (rPET) for our new products. Through initiatives such as recovering wastewater or implementing a pallet return policy for customers, we avoid generating waste at our own production sites, reduce negative waste impacts, and support the circular economy in our upstream value chain.
In India, the Pune-based team launched a sustainability-supporting service for customers through which Armacell takes back insulation scraps from onsite applications and reintegrates them into the manufacturing process for acoustics products and solutions. A total of 10 tonnes of insulation scraps were recycled in the pre-launch testing phase of this initiative in 2022. Another example comes from our plant in Panyu, China, where powder from the dust collectors is reused as raw material. This saves 7.5 tonnes a year in waste and raw material terms.
In 2022, the waste Armacell generated amounted to 17,738 tonnes, which was less that the 18,276 tonnes reported in 2021. The total amount of production scraps re-used in finished goods was 10,042 tonnes (2021: 11,072 tonnes). In the elastomeric (EL) process, a small quantity of recycled scraps are currently reintegrated into the manufacturing process. In the polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) processes, the scraps are reground and then utilised in the production process. In addition, we are continuing to expand the use of recycled PET (rPET) for our new products and, in 2022, used 92% of rPET in our ArmaPET® production.
Certifications
As part of our efforts to maintain the highest ecological standards, our environmental and energy management systems are subjected to regular auditing by external authorities. As a result, 13 of our plants are environmentally certified to ISO 14001, and the energy management systems at our German facilities are certified to ISO 50001.
EU Projects
At Armacell, we are convinced that working in teams with other companies has benefits. This is why we are proud to have been a partner in two Horizon 2020 projects.
SWEETWOODS
Can we decrease our dependency on finite fossils fuels? Is there a more sustainable alternative to petroleum as the raw material for foam products? To find answers to these questions Armacell is one of the partners in the EU-funded SWEETWOODS project.
SWEETWOODS has brought together nine bio-innovation oriented partners from all over Europe with the aim of creating added value for lignocellulosic biomass. The value chain starts with enzymatic lignin depolymerisation and the conversion of sugars to produce high-purity wood-derived intermediates, which are then processed into a variety of biofuels and bio-chemicals. Armacell’s researchers are currently developing lignin-based feedstock recipes in the laboratory. The next stage will involve pilot-scale testing, with industrial-scale production as the longer-term goal. What is driving Armacell? The desire for true bio-based feedstock, the replacement of organic flame retardants and potential cost savings.
PlastiCircle
A coffee to go, a handy water bottle, a disposable lunch box container – plastic packaging is everywhere and its recycling is an ever-important topic.
That is why Armacell has become a research partner in the PlastiCircle project for plastic packaging waste chain enhancement. Thanks to our pioneering technology for recycled PET bottles we offer 100% recycled and recyclable PET core foams. Using this expertise, we are looking into new opportunities for post-consumer PET sourcing and its conversion into new full-value products.
The goal is to move away from a linear 'take, make & dispose economy' towards a circular model, based on the principle of reduce, reuse & recycle. End-of-life products are reused as raw materials to extend the product life cycle and close the loop towards a circular economy. PlastiCircle is one of 23 environment and resources projects selected for funding by the European Union.
Associations
Armacell is a member of multiple initiatives and alliances that promote sustainability and the more efficient use of energy in buildings:
