Results of precise process analysis and evaluation

Less solvent, lower energy consumption, and less waste – those are the core goals of the tesa environmental program.

Continously decreasing energy consumption of tesa Group worldwide

Starting from a systematic evaluation of all our business and production processes with an eye to the environmental effects and risks involved, we have developed and implemented projects that demonstrate our commitment to environmental excellence.

At the same time, we subject our environmental projects to an annual monitoring process in which the company management determines the projects’ effectiveness by comparing their achievements with the goals originally set. If there is any gap between the two, we start additional activities – a step that has not yet been necessary.

After the successful conclusion of our first environmental program, which ran from 2001 through 2006, we have once again set ambitious, binding goals for ourselves for the next five-year period. The degree to which we meet these internationally applicable environmental goals is determined through a global monitoring program based in each case on constant production quantities. Now, for the first time, our environmental goals for the period from 2007 through 2012 also include emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Our activities in this area have already yielded clear successes: From 2007 until 2009, we were able to achieve a 30 percent reduction. That means that as things currently stand, we will in all likelihood meet our target of a 50 percent reduction by 2012. This is also directly connected with the ongoing further development of our production technologies, where we are consistently eliminating solvent use wherever possible. This approach led to a decrease of seven percent in 2009.

As a result of the worldwide economic crisis, our final figures for energy consumption in 2009 fell short of our expectations, stagnating at the previous year’s level. The reason for this development was the unfavorable combination of reduced production volumes and fixed baseline energy consumption quantities that apply regardless of production levels. The same factors also affected our CO2 emissions in Europe. With regard to the constant 2006 production volume, which we use as the fixed basis for comparison across all areas, we posted a slight increase of two percent for 2009.