Environmental commitment

New environmental requirements also creating opportunities
The level of environmental commitment among the customers is growing steadily, and is raising the requirements on ElektronikGruppen as a supplier and corporate citizen. In the electronics industry, the drivers for product development are often linked to a need to reduce one or several parameters such as price, weight, volume and energy consumption, which can create positive environmental effects when properly utilised. By assisting its customers in evaluation and selection of new products and materials, ElektronikGruppen can assist them in reducing their environmental impact. 

Efficient resource utilisation
In its own operations, ElektronikGruppen strives to minimise environmental impact through efficient resource utilisation at every stage. In trading activities this mainly involves optimising transports and reducing consumption of packaging materials, etc. As far as commercially justifiable, ElektronikGruppen strives to use suppliers and transport companies that are environmentally certified.

In 2008 strenuous efforts were made to ensure the Group’s compliance with the EU’s new and extensive chemicals legislation REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals). Furthermore, at the beginning of 2009 a logistics centre in Hong Kong was opened that will reduce both direct transport costs and indirect environmental costs for transports to the growing number of customers in Asia.

Environmental and OHS certifications 
Within the Electronics business area, the Electromechanics business unit is certified according to the ISO 14001 environmental management standard and the ambition is to environmentally certify the other units in the business area during 2009. The Products business area is also striving for environmentally-friendly processes and materials in its own manufacturing. The production facility in Estonia is certified according to ISO 14001 and also to the OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety standard.