Accelerated work on reducing the environmental impact
“Optimizing the use of natural resources is our business. Alfa Laval makes a significant contribution to reducing the environmental impact of industrial processes.”
Alfa Laval is committed to reducing the environmental impact of its products and processes. The company seeks to ensure that its operations are as clean as possible and include environmental aspects when products are developed, designed, produced, marketed, serviced and finally scrapped.
Environmental management is coordinated by the Environmental Council, which is chaired by the head of Operations. It includes managers from the Process Technology and Equipment Divisions, Human Resources, Research & Development and Parts & Service. The Council harmonizes its objectives with Group Management and progress is regularly reviewed by the Alfa Laval Board. 71 sites (64) report key environmental data to a web-based reporting and management tool to ensure that the total environmental impact can be monitored and changes at site level implemented.
Work starts with a systematic environmental management approach
Alfa Laval’s efforts to reduce the environmental impact stem from having a clear understanding of the current impact of the business processes – from new product development to eventual disposal. By following the chain of processes, Alfa Laval can identify projects and activities needed to reduce the major negative environmental impacts in each step of the chain.
Designed for the environment
Since the total environmental impact of a product is strongly influenced by the materials selection and product design, Alfa Laval has implemented an environmental impact life-cycle assessment (LCA) method, which is being implemented in all major product design centers as an integral part of the new product design process. In 2008, 20 new products were assessed using LCAs. Of these 10 were replacements of existing products with an average reduction of environmental impact greater than 20 percent.
Suppliers
In 2008 Alfa Laval focused on understanding how many of its key suppliers had an effective environmental management process. A total of 215 suppliers were surveyed, representing approximately 80 percent of the purchased value in production. By year end, 173 had responded; 53 percent stated they had an environmental management system, including 43 percent with partial or full ISO 14001 certification. 26 percent of suppliers had set targets to reduce their greenhouse-gas emissions. Alfa Laval’s goal is to influence suppliers to implement effective environmental management systems and achieve specific GHG reduction targets.
Manufacturing
Manufacturing represents approximately 20 percent of Alfa Laval’s calculated greenhouse-gas emissions. However, Alfa Laval has also identified three other significant environmental impact areas, common for all factories: the consumption of water and chemicals and the volume waste produced. Targets are in place at a local level to increase the proportion of waste recycled. Each manufacturing site is required to set improvement goals for environmental performance and initiate projects aimed at reducing the impact.
Logistics and goods transportation
The transportation of products accounts for more than 40 percent of the company’s total GHG emissions. During 2008, several projects were up and running to change the way Alfa Laval transports products and semi-finished goods. Shifting from airfreight to surface transportation represents the main opportunity in this area.
The average emissions in 2008 were 114.6 g CO2 per ton- km (115.8). However in the second two quarters of the year the average was below 110 g CO2 per ton-km which suggest that we are making noticeable progress to our goal of cutting these emissions by 5 percent per year from 2007 to 2011. The total calculated emissions from goods transportation fell by approximately 2 percent to 39,000 tons (40,000).
Sales
Employee transportation is another significant contributor to Alfa Laval’s total emissions. Due to the customers’ unique needs, there is often no realistic alternative than for the sales staff to travel to the customer’s site to fully understand the challenge and select the most appropriate solution. However, internal travel should be avoided, with the preferred solutions being telephone, video and inter-net conferencing. Increased business travel during 2008 caused the calculated GHG emissions from employee transportation to increase by approximately 10 percent compared with 2007.
During 2008, Alfa Laval changed its car-leasing policy to limit the choice of vehicles to those with better environmental performance. The total car fleet had average emissions of 184 g CO2 per km (186). The aim is to reduce this each year as lease agreements are due for renewal. Most savings will derive from changes in the leased car fleets in the US, Australia and Sweden.
Service
Once delivered, Alfa Laval’s products normally last for decades, if properly serviced.
The service technicians are supported by service and repair workshops worldwide. The environmental performance of each workshop is closely monitored. The most significant environmental impact from these workshops results from water and chemicals consumption – both of which are essential for cleaning. Alfa Laval is developing solutions to increase the amount of water recycled and reducing the quantity of hazardous chemicals used.
Recycling
Alfa Laval products usually last for decades. When eventually taken out of service, they have a high residual scrap metal value, due to their content of stainless steel and other metals, creating a high incentive for recycling. Accordingly, Alfa Laval’s principal environmental focus is to reduce the impact of waste during production and of secondary products such as packaging.
For more information on Alfa Laval’s environmental work, visit www.alfalaval.com
In 2008, Alfa Laval installed 120 solar panels at its factory in Pune, India, to heat water to 80 degrees Celsius for testing decanter centrifuges. This replaced the existing electrical heating system and is expected to generate savings exceeding 100,000 kWh per year.
Over a period of three years, the Alfa Laval factory in Alonte, Italy, has been working to reduce the water, solvent and energy consumption of its product washing facility. Through analysis and experimentation, the processes have been altered to completely eliminate the need to wash the product during production. This resulted in annual savings of approximately 100 m3, of natural gas, 80 MW of electrical energy and eight tons of solvent per year.
Environment  

Optimizing the use of natural resources is our business
Alfa Laval makes a significant contribution to reducing the environmental impact of industrial processes.
  • Green processes
    Alfa Laval’s core competences of fluid handling, separation technology and heat transfer are at the heart of many industrial and environmental protection processes. Our products and expertise contribute to the efficient utilization of energy, cleaning of water and fluids, and efficient production of food and pharmaceuticals. We are committed to continuously improving our products and services to provide our customers with an opportunity to reduce their operational costs while improving their environmental performance.
  • Green Operations
    Alfa Laval endeavors to perform its own operations as cleanly and efficiently as possible, and to take environmental aspects into consideration when developing, designing, manufacturing, servicing and marketing its products.
Climate Change
Humanity is facing a huge challenge in the form of minimizing the effects of climate change. A key element of this challenge is reducing emissions of greenhouse-gases.
Alfa Laval’s compact heat exchangers are increasingly in demand from energy-intensive industries seeking ways to reduce their energy consumption. Alfa Laval’s products often offer considerable GHG savings for these customers, compared with the old technology installed or available in the market. In relative terms, Alfa Laval’s own processes are much less energy intensive. Alfa Laval contributes to the Carbon Disclosure Project, which aims to encourage all industries to reduce their GHG emissions.
The target is to reduce comparable annual GHG emissions by 15 percent between 2007 and 2011.
Total carbon-dioxide emissions were 92,000 tons in 2008, down 1 percent on 2007 but excluding acquisitions (4,000 tons) the comparable emissions were reduced by 5 percent.