REHAU reaches environmental targets earlier than planned

Polymer specialist REHAU supports the seventeen United Nations sustainability targets, and has set itself clear goals in the matter of environmental protection. By the year 2020, the internationally active company wants to reduce the consumption of water by 40 percent, and that of gas and fuel oil by 25 percent; the CO2 emissions should be decreased by 25 percent and, 30 percent less electric power should be consumed. Definitively ambitious goals. The current figures are all the more noteworthy, according to which two out of four goals have been achieved already - that is the reduction of CO2 emissions and the economisation in power consumption.

REHAU owes this success to the implementation of ISO 50001 standard, to the involvement of the employees in the BES (Building and Energy Services) Department, and to the support of the energy management officers of the plants. When ISO 50001 was introduced in summer 2012, the specialists in the plants identified only isolated measures to improve energy efficiency. Due to the successive implementation of the standard in all European locations, a total of 526 measures to reduce energy costs could be identified between 2013 and 2016. All-in-all these measures produce an annual energy saving potential of 29.2 million kWh, which corresponds to the annual energy demand of about 7,300 single-family homes.

At the end of 2016, REHAU invested in energy management software. With this software, sensor data from electricity meters or other media meters (water, natural gas, compressed air, etc.) can be recorded, displayed and analysed. The recognition of energy potentials is considerably simplified, and in addition the possibility is created to carry out intelligent load management. This pays: A pro-active and clever manoeuvring of energy consumption in production and the prevention of overload is rewarded by the German Federal Network Agency by reimbursement which exceeds many times over the investment costs for the software. The energy specialists of the polymer processor are pleased: Their meticulous work in tracking down energy improvements pays off - not only with respect to cost saving, but primarily with view to the environment and the sparing use of valuable resources.