Environment

ENVIRONMENT

SOCIETY

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

PRODUCT QUALITY

ENVIRONMENT

SOCIETY

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

PRODUCT QUALITY

Environment

Environmental protection and conservation are very important to us. It’s why we select the materials we use responsibly, sort our waste carefully, increase our energy efficiency, pursue various recycling initiatives, and raise awareness among our employees and other stakeholders regarding important environmental issues. We’re not just contributing to preserving natural resources, but also positioning our company for the future.

Environmental management standard ISO 14001

At ELTEN, environmental protection is a living reality. We therefore rely on an ISO 14001-certified environmental management system. This system helps us to continually control and optimise our environmental processes. Our primary objectives are to actively promote environmental protection, minimise our environmental impact and consistently implement our corporate environmental protection goals.

ELTEN implements a variety of measures with the aim of saving energy, minimising CO₂e emissions and thus protecting the climate. This is based on comprehensive monitoring and documentation of energy consumption and CO₂e emissions.

CO₂e accounting

As early as 2015, we began calculating our CO₂e emissions in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG Protocol) for an annual balance sheet (Scope 1 and 2). The GHG Protocol distinguishes between three scopes of emissions:

SCOPE 1:
All direct emissions that occur from a company’s own business operations
SCOPE 2:
Indirect emissions from energy generated outside a company, e.g. electricity
SCOPE 3:
Other upstream and downstream emissions

Reduced gas consumption

We have significantly reduced our energy consumption through the targeted use of unavoidable internal waste heat. With the help of heat exchangers, we use the waste heat generated to heat the site and thus significantly reduce our CO₂e emissions. Since the installation of the system in 2018, a significant share of natural gas consumption has already been saved at the main production site in Uedem.

Renewable energy

The solar panel system on our logistics and production buildings has a total output of 938 kWp (kilowatt peak). A large share of the energy required by the heat pumps, which are used to heat the buildings in winter and cool them in summer, is supplied by self-generated electricity. We feed any surplus clean power into the public grid.

Chemicals management

cads – the cooperation for assuring defined standards for shoe and leather goods production has defined its own limit values for restricted substances. These often exceed the European Union’s legal requirements. As a member, we have committed to comply with the cads limits.

Environmentally friendly leather production

A large amount of water is required for tanning leather. For this reason, we are a member of the Leather Working Group (LWG) and are thereby committed to comprehensive water and chemicals management. The LWG is a non-profit organisation made up of stakeholders from the entire leather value chain. It promotes improving the global leather supply chain and minimising the environmental impact of leather production.

Water management

ELTEN GmbH’s water consumption plays a minor role, as no water is required for the actual production process. Nonetheless, we encourage all employees to use this resource sparingly.

Kreislaufwirtschaft_Doppel_Kachel_Motiv_EN

Waste hierarchy

We follow the concept of waste hierarchy as part of the German Closed Cycle and Waste Management Act. This means that, wherever possible, we 1. prevent, 2.reuse, 3. recycle, 4. recover energy from and only then 5. dispose of waste. Natural resources are protected by maximising the life cycle of materials and raw materials. We have implemented a large number of measures to promote environmentally friendly waste management.

Use of recycled materials

We use recycled materials for instance in the uppers, laces, inlay soles, heel caps and inner linings,this allows us to reduce the use of primary raw materials and conserve resources. We do not compromise when it comes to product quality and durability.

Production waste recycling

We minimise the material waste and offcuts generated by the production of our shoes. We return PU and TPU production waste directly to the production process as far as possible. We give the remaining quantities to partners who use them to manufacture new products, e.g. insulation materials.

Packaging material

For the ELTEN brand, we use shoe boxes that comply with the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC®) recycling standard. The FSC Recycled label stands for products that contain only recycled material. The ELTEN brand outer packaging complies with the FSC Mix Standard. This means that materials from FSC-certified forests and/or recycling material as well as material from controlled sources are used in production

Pioneering projects

In various projects, we are collaborating with external partners and suppliers to find environmentally friendly and commercially viable solutions to enable our shoes to be recycled at the end of their useful life. We continuously test the quality and cost-effectiveness of chemical and mechanical recycling approaches.

Due to various challenges, there is as yet no marketable solution. Obstacles include the clean separation of processed raw materials and the collection of the required quantities of unmixed products. A loss of quality is also possible in some cases. To this end, we are constantly analysing how much the input of primary raw materials can be reduced in general, while still complying with quality and standard requirements.

8. November 2023 / from the ELTEN team

Product groups

ELTEN GmbH
Ostwall 7-13
D – 47589 Uedem

Phone: + 49 (0) 2825 – 80168

E-Mail: service@elten.com

Environment