As one of the major contributors to the Brick Development Association’s (BDA) Brick Industry Sustainability Strategy Progress Report 2012, Wienerberger has taken the opportunity to see how it measures up to industry averages.
Released to coincide with the BDA Innovation Day 2013, the report data has been compiled over the last decade (2002-2012), and the figures show Wienerberger’s brick site performance to be extremely positive.
Key areas where Wienerberger has proved to be ahead of the industry include the percentage of production covered by ISO 14001 and BES 6001 standards (100% of production for Wienerberger) and CO2 emissions.
While the BDA found the industry average to be 27.6 kg CO2/m2, Wienerberger has succeeded in cutting this to just 24 kg CO2/m2 - a reduction of 12.5%. Likewise, the company is also leading the way in terms of recycled water usage and the use of recycled raw materials (classified in the report as Materials from Alternative Recycled and Secondary Sources (MARRS) materials), increasing both by over 50% above the ten year industry averages.
John Sandford, Sustainability Director for Wienerberger, commented: “The sustainability of our products and production is of the utmost importance to the company’s current and future operations.
"We knew that we had made really strong progress in sustainability over the past decade so it is fantastic to be able to measure the company against the BDA’s industry averages, and to see that in most areas we are ahead of the curve. That said, we have no intention of resting on our laurels and are well aware of our industry’s continued responsibility towards ensuring our processes are as green and as environmentally low impact as they can possibly be.”