Workbook 2020-2021 1
Environmental impact 39 WE INVITED AN INDEPENDENT
consultant company to calculate the environmental impact of our products. We wanted to see what caused the biggest impact and where we could make improvements. TO START WITH, we found that several things contributed towards reducing impact. Such as that 97% of our purchases were made from Swedish and other European suppliers, which greatly reduced transportation requirements. Our aluminium – a raw material that requires a lot of energy to produce – consists of 50% recycled material. Our factory is heated using sustainably produced wood pellets and is run on renewable electricity. IN SUMMARY, the investigation showed us that our outdoor stoves each have a carbon footprint of 14.2 kg. The largest part – just over 85% – is in the raw material. HOWEVER, IF YOU SPREAD this over the average length of a stove’s life – up to 20 or 30 years – this is actually reasonably low. Our stoves can also be recycled when they have lived their life, and be reborn in another product. And with the knowledge we have today, we can make well-grounded decisions that will help us further reduce our environmental impact in the future. Chemical use OUR NON-STICK COATING is free from PFOA and fulfils the requirements of the EU’s chemical directive REACH. The pre-coated aluminium is bought from one of our suppliers. In other words, we do not coat our non-stick products in our factory. THE CHEMICAL TREATMENT that happens here is that the aluminium is washed to remove the slide oil that is used in some parts of production. All the water used in this process is treated in our own treatment plant – according to Swedish environmental law, which places high demands in this area. We regularly test our cleaned water by sending it to an independent laboratory to confirm that everything is working as it should.