Sustainability and profitability go hand in hand in Colombia
The environmental programme of Smurfit Kappa in Colombia shows that implementing the good practice policy concerning the use of water, gas, and electricity, has significantly decreased the consumption of these resources.
Simultaneously, these changes have improved operational conditions with regard to machines, productivity, quality and waste.
Using different continuous improvement tools the packaging operations in Colombia have realised many technical improvements;changes driven by both an environmental concern and an economic challenge. The cost of energy in Colombia has been rapidly increasing and therefore much focus is aimed at controlling energy use to create a competitive advantage.
The new measures include a decrease in machine section temperatures, new temperature control systems, extra insulation, new machine start-up order, more continuous corrugator runs, replacing lamps and installing a translucent roof, new buffer tanks, switch to electric pumps, using rain water and condensate recovery, and the optimisation of the machine printing wash system.
All these measures have resulted in a:
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29% reduction in gas usage
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10% reduction in electricity usage saving energy and reducing CO2 emissions
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29% reduction in water usage.