Our contributionOur environmental policy
Our environmental policy
More than 50% of all ISOVER factories in the world (71% for glass wool and stone wool only)are ISO 14001 certified, and we are continuously improving and controlling all environmental aspects of our production sites.
Managing natural Resources
Preserving biodiversity is a genuine concern for us, since natural raw materials are present in almost all of our products. For instance, sand or basalt is used for mineral. Water is used in our manufacturing processes for cooling high-temperature facilities.
We aim to minimize groundwater extraction as much as possible by increasing the use of closed circuits. Research and Development work on reducing water consumption is underway in many areas.
We have decreased our water consumption per ton of produced mineral wool by 30% between 1999 and 2007 by increasing the use of closed circuit systems and investing in new equipment that consumes less water.
Managing waste and promoting recycling
The Group makes a considerable effort to promote recycling, which brings the twofold environmental benefits of waste minimization and reduced consumption of primary raw materials.
We increase the use of secondary raw materials. These materials are created from recycled primary raw materials, such as cullet for glass wool. The use of secondary raw materials combined with improved manufacturing processes helps reduce the consumption of natural resources and the volume of waste to be disposed of.
Each metric ton of cullet used prevents some 500 kilograms of CO2 emissions. We are constantly seeking out new avenues for the re-use of waste.
By recycling our production waste in the production process (75% of glass wool production waste are recycled
, 2/3 of stone wool production waste), waste levels have been reduced considerably.
50% of our glass wool is currently produced from recycled glass
. In our plants recycled glass can replace up to 80% of natural raw materials.